When each of these three elements of vision—concern for excellence, for people and for the wider environment—are present, business is transformed from a tool for making profits into a creative, humane experiment for improving life.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
The future of humanity will move closer and closer toward the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly.
—Sri Rajneesh (Osho) (1931–90) Indian Spiritual Teacher
Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist
To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to stink of Zen.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
The downside, of course, is that over time religions become encrusted with precepts and ideas that are the antithesis of soul, as each faith tries to protect its doctrines and institution instead of nurturing the evolution of consciousness. If one is not careful to distinguish the genuine insights of a religion from its irrelevant accretions, one can go through life following an inappropriate moral compass.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
The ultimate Path is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing.
—Jianzhi Sengcan (d.606 CE) Chinese-Buddhist Monk
Zen is the game of insight, the game of discovering who you are beneath the social masks.
—Reginald Horace Blyth (1898–1964) British Japanologist, Zen Author
It is as if evolution has built a safety device in our nervous system that allows us to experience full happiness only when we are living at 100%—when we are fully using the physical and mental equipment we have been given.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
If we expended all our energies solely on taking care of our own needs we would stop growing. In that respect what we call “soul” can be viewed as the surplus energy that can be invested into change and transformation. As such, it is the cutting edge of evolution.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
There are no mundane things outside of Buddhism, and there is no Buddhism outside of mundane things.
—Buddhist Teaching
A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity…one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Zen is a totally different kind of religion. It brings humanness to religion. It is not bothered about anything superhuman; its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing.
—Sri Rajneesh (Osho) (1931–90) Indian Spiritual Teacher
Knowing oneself is not so much a question of discovering what is present in one’s self, but rather the creation of who one wants to be.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
In studying the way, realizing it is hard; once you have realized it, preserving it is hard. When you can preserve it, putting it into practice is hard.
—Zen Proverb Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism
No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over … the Zen attitude is that words and truth are incompatible, or at least that no words can capture truth.
—Douglas R. Hofstadter (b.1945) American Cognitive Scientist, Author
Zen opens a man’s eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of pace in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden.
—D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966) Japanese Buddhist Philosopher
Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
Every moment of our lives we are either growing or dying—and it’s largely a choice, not fate. Throughout its life cycle, every one of the body’s trillions of cells is driven to grow and improve its ability to use more of its innate yet untapped capacity. Research biologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, called this syntropy, which he defined as the “innate drive in living matter to perfect itself”. It turns conventional thinking upside down…As living cells—or as people—there is no staying the same. If we aim for some middle ground or status quo, it’s an illusion—beneath the surface what’s actually happening is we’re dying, not growing. And the goal of a lifetime is continued growth, not adulthood. As Rene Dubos put it, “Genius is childhood recaptured”. For this to happen, studies show that we must recapture—or prevent the loss of—such child-like traits as the ability to learn, to love, to laugh about small things, to leap, to wonder, and to explore. It’s time to rescue ourselves from our grown-up ways before it’s too late.
—Robert K. Cooper (b.1957) American Author, Psychologist
However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Enjoyment, on the other hand, is not always pleasant, and it can be very stressful at times. A mountain climber, for example, may be close to freezing, utterly exhausted, and in danger of falling into a bottomless crevasse, yet he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Sipping a pina colada under a palm tree at the edge of the turquoise ocean is idyllic, but it just doesn’t compare to the exhilaration he feels on the windswept ridge.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Zen is all-inclusive. It never denies, it never says no to anything; it accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality.
—Sri Rajneesh (Osho) (1931–90) Indian Spiritual Teacher
Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one’s own rules—this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
—D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966) Japanese Buddhist Philosopher
We can either help to make this world a more incredible place than it has ever been, or we can hasten its return to inorganic dust.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
In the words of Max DePree: “Management has a lot to do with answers. But leadership is a function of questions. And the first question for a leader always is: ‘Who do we intend to be?’ Not ‘What are we going to do?’ but ‘Who do we intend to be?’”
—Max De Pree (1924–2017) American Businessman
The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated. Thousands of theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that (1) adults can learn languages much faster than children when constant 9-5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
Let go over a cliff, die completely, and then come back to life—after that you cannot be deceived.
—Zen Proverb Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism
Through learning we grow, becoming more than we were before, and in that sense learning is unselfish, because it results in the transformation of what we were before, a setting aside of the old self in favor of a more complex one.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
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