Nyanaponika Thera Quotes

In the Buddhist scriptures one of the qualities attributed to Right Mindfulness is called “‘non-superficiality,” and this is, of course, just a negative way of expressing our positive term “thoroughness.”

Nyanaponika Thera

• Qualities
• Scriptures
• Thoroughness

Attempts at eliminating the mind’s main defilements—greed, hate and delusion—must fail as long as these defilements find refuge and support in the uncontrolled dim regions of the mind.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Mind
• Fail
• Defilement

Mindfulness, though so highly praised and capable of such great achievements, is not at all a "mystical" state, beyond the ken and reach of the average person. It is, on the contrary, something quite simple and common, and very familiar to us.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Simple
• Common
• Mindfulness

Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Mind
• Balance
• Equanimity

If one knows but does not act accordingly, one knows imperfectly’.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Know
• Act
• Imperfectly

Two thoughts cannot coexist at the same time: if the clear light of mindfulness is present, there is no room for mental twilight.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Light
• Thoughts
• Twilight

Painful feeling is suffering in itself; pleasant feeling brings suffering through its transiency and its unsatisfying and unsatisfactory nature.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Nature
• Feeling
• Suffering

The relatively small sector of the mind that stands in the intense light of purposeful will and thought is not a reliable standard of the inner strength and lucidity of consciousness in its totality.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Mind
• Strength

Men, knowing not how to handle the tool of the mind, have become used to leaning on others and on habit; and, owing to that, this splendid tool, the human mind, has in fact become unreliable through neglect.

Nyanaponika Thera

• Mind
• Handle
• Tool