Inspirational Quotes by Dennis Genpo Merzel (American Buddhist Monk)

There is a transcendent awareness, a Big Mind, a Big Heart, present and readily accessible to each and every one of us. When we realize it, we see it is the source of true peace, happiness, satisfaction, courage and joy. And yet, we don’t know how to access it, we don’t know how to bring it into our awareness. We don’t know how to manifest it or embody it.For the past thirty-six years, I have been searching for a way to assist people to access this awareness. In June 1999, after much study and difficulty, I finally found a simple, effective way which I have been exploring and refining since then. I call it the Big Mind/Big Heart process, or simply, Big Mind.
—Dennis Genpo Merzel

Do we need the self? Yes, absolutely. Do we need to be identified with it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Absolutely not. Because when we’re identified with the self, as the self, we live in fear, we live in anxiety, we live in stress, we live in suffering. When we’re able to identify with that which has no boundaries, with Big Mind — it’s a name, you could call it many things, universal consciousness or whatever — when we’re no longer identified with the self, fear doesn’t come up. When we identify with that which is ungraspable, that which is unnameable, then there is absolutely no fear. We live in fearlessness.
—Dennis Genpo Merzel

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