JAY MICHAELSON’S QUOTES

“All relaxation does is allow the truth to be felt. The mind is cleared, like a dirty window wiped
clean, and the magnitude of what we might ordinarily take for granted inspires tears.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“There’s no path to liberation that doesn’t pass through the shadow.”

― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you’re the
only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you’re not! There are
generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated
wisdom.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“It is possible to refine awareness itself so much that the emptiness of things, and the role
mental construction plays, becomes a directly apprehended reality.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving creatures is just relax and
allow.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“To me, God is a name that humans give to all that is. Experientially, it is whatever is left over
when the delusion of the self is taken away. ”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“We are animals descended from five billion years of wanting, striving, and seeking. And life
just doesn’t cooperate. So we suffer. And so the solution to that problem is to upgrade our minds,
in a distinctly ‘unnatural’ way, so that the mind clings less and lets go more.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“The Buddha’s dharma didn’t teach peace and relaxation; it taught awakening—often rude
awakening.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“At the last stages of the journey, there’s no journey at all.”

― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“Part of why I love these angry, straight, white punks is that they are stripping the dharma of its
bullshit, and applying it to contexts and styles that, even if they aren’t mine, are at least different
from the norm.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“Yes, eros and agape are different, but the stifling of the former leads to a distortion of the
latter.”
― Jay Michaelson, God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality

“Sexuality is not just sex; sexuality is at the essence of who we are as human beings. In the
words of theologian James B. Nelson, “sexuality always involves much more than what we do
with our genitals. More fundamentally, it is who we are as body-selves who experience the
emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual need for intimate communion, both creaturely and
divine.”8 To hate an essential part of a person is to hate the person.”
― Jay Michaelson, God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality

“Love of other people may take many forms, from brotherly love between members of a faith
community to the love that inspires us to mete out justice fairly, clothe the naked, and feed the
hungry. When an earthquake strikes, it is an act of love to give of our time and resources to those
who are suffering. When injustice takes place, it is an act of love to shout in protest. And when a
population is vilified, subjugated, and despised; when the members of that group are
mischaracterized and slandered; when selective teachings of religious faith are used as cudgels—
then the mandate to love compels us to learn more, engage more, and finally to stand up for those
who have been wronged.”
― Jay Michaelson, God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality

“For the Buddha of the Pali Canon, the goal is liberation: the cessation of suffering, the end of
the endless hamster-wheel of dependent origination, of mental formations leading to desire
leading to clinging leading to suffering and so on. Nibbana, or nirvana, was not originally
conceived as some magical heavenly world, or even a permanent altered state of consciousness.
It is usually described, in the early texts, negatively: as a candle being snuffed out.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment
 “Brainhacking works. By following a few simple instructions, you can, over time, change the
nature of your brain to make it more resilient, more resistant to aging, and more capable of
happiness, compassion, and clarity. The data is in, and it matters. It matters, in fact, in two
distinct ways. First, as this hard data filters through the U.S. healthcare industry, the educational
system, the military, and the corporate world, to name just a few examples, it will become clear
that mindfulness is among the most cost-effective methods ever for reducing hospital stays,
advancing educational opportunity, and improving the functioning of organizations. This will be
a game-changer. Second, the science changes how the dharma is even to be understood. This
hard data is the opposite of soft spirituality. Meditation and mindfulness are tools, not a set of
spiritual exercises whose merit depends on faith or some unknown forces. This is why I’ve used
the word “technology” in describing the work of meditation, why Kenneth Folk calls it a form of
“contemplative fitness,” and why I like the term “brainhacking.” We’re not referring here to
actual, physical technologies like electrodes or vibrating implants or special sounds that put you
into an altered state (although all of these exist). Rather, when I say “technology,” I’m thinking
of how meditation and mindfulness are tools—processes that lead to predictable results.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“For me, religion comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.”
― Jay Michaelson, God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality

“The Hindu sage Ramakrishna once said that the mind is like fabric; it takes the color of the dye
it’s soaked in. Soak the mind in a quiet, relaxing environment and it will become quiet and
relaxed. Soak it in floods of Facebook and, well.…”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.” This”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“Neither the spiritual nor the material repression of sadness reflects the depth of contemplative
life. The great irony is that the very effort to feel joy (or relief) prevents its fruition. Perhaps
counterintuitively, it is the surrender to sadness that causes it to pass—not the suppression of it.
The gestures of opening, making-space, giving-way—these enable a delicious relinquishment, a
setting down of the burden, even, perhaps, a kind of wisdom.”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“The deep joy of awakening is a happiness not of merriment or exuberance, but a love that
reveals itself precisely when sadness or other difficult emotions are allowed to unfold just as they
are. It is a joy of relinquishing, allowing, setting down the burden. The spiritual search, then, is
really the cessation of searching. No more manipulating experience in order to feel better (what
will it be this time?), no more lurching out of the mind for satisfaction. But letting go, letting be,
and giving up.”
― Jay Michaelson, The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path

“Can I really remember, over and over again, that, contrary to all indications, fulfilling my
desires will not be as satisfying as lessening them? Simple, but not easy.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“as Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick

society.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment

“Dukkha is not the self-inflicted stress of a technology executive; it’s the real stuff, the kind of
suffering that merits the Pali word’s original meaning: brokenness, stuckness.”
― Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of
Enlightenment