Top 80 Joseph Goldstein Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease.”

— Joseph Goldstein

2. “Backbiting and gossip are the third type of unskillful speech. Words of this nature cause disharmony and the loss of friends.”

— Joseph Goldstein

3. “All beings are the heirs of their own karma. Their happiness or unhappiness depends on their actions, not upon my wishes.”

— Joseph Goldstein

4. “If you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it.”

— Joseph Goldstein

5. “The greatest communication is usually how we are rather than what we say.”

— Joseph Goldstein

6. “Do no harm, act for the good, purify the mind.” The flowering of all the great traditions of Buddhism derives from the teachings in this one simple verse.”

— Joseph Goldstein

7. “When we see deeply that all that is subject to arising is also subject to cessation, that whatever arises will also pass away, the mind becomes disenchanted. Becoming disenchanted, one becomes dispassionate. And through dispassion, the mind is liberated.”

— Joseph Goldstein

8. “Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with peaceful mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never leaves.4.”

— Joseph Goldstein

9. “We see that each experience is simply just what it is, and that the “I” and “mine” are extra.”

— Joseph Goldstein

10. “The great discovery in our practice is that, on one level, birth and death, existence and nonexistence, self and other are the great defining themes of our lives. And on another level, it’s all just a dance of insubstantial appearances, what the Buddha called “the magic show of consciousness.”

— Joseph Goldstein

11. “The mind does not belong to you, but you are responsible for it.”

— Joseph Goldstein

12. “Not Seeing Dukkha Is Dukkha.”

— Joseph Goldstein

13. “But after years of practice I’ve come to feel grateful when I observe these unskillful patterns arise, because now I would rather see them than not see them. It becomes another chance to unhook from these patterns, to see their essential transparency, and to let go of the burden they bring.”

— Joseph Goldstein

14. “Mindfulness, the Root of Happiness.”

— Joseph Goldstein

15. “The wonderful paradox about the truth of suffering is that the more we open to it and understand it, the lighter and freer our mind becomes. Our mind becomes more spacious, more open, and happier as we move past our avoidance and denial to see what is true. We become less driven by compulsive desires and addictions, because we see clearly the nature of things as they are.”

— Joseph Goldstein

16. “There are ten actions – three of body, four of speech, and three of mind – that plant the seeds of our own future suffering.”

— Joseph Goldstein

17. “No longer do we look outside of ourselves for solutions. We have seen where the path lies. All we require are the skillful means that will help us walk it.”

— Joseph Goldstein

18. “Aspirations inspire us, while expectations simply lead us into cycles of hope and fear: hope that what we want will happen; fear that it won’t.”

— Joseph Goldstein

19. “Finally, my mind just settled into the realization that accidents happen, and a mantra suddenly appeared in my mind, one that has served me well since: anything can happen anytime.”

— Joseph Goldstein

20. “What you are looking for is what is looking.”

— Joseph Goldstein

21. “All things arise when the appropriate conditions are present, and all things pass away as conditions change. Behind the process, there is no “self” who is running the show.”

— Joseph Goldstein

22. “Most people believe that we are the thoughts that come through our mind. I hope not, because if we are, we are in big trouble! Those thoughts coming through have clearly been conditioned by something: by different events in our childhood, our environment, our past lives, or even some occurrence that has happened two minutes before.”

— Joseph Goldstein

23. “In Buddhist psychology “conceit” has a special meaning: that activity of the mind that compares itself with others. When we think about ourselves as better than, equal to, or worse than someone else, we are giving expression to conceit. This comparing mind is called conceit because all forms of it – whether it is “I’m better than” or “I’m worse than,” or “I’m just the same as” – come from the hallucination that there is a self; they all refer back to a feeling of self, of “I am.”

— Joseph Goldstein

24. “Memory is a class of thoughts which takes as its object something already experienced.”

— Joseph Goldstein

25. “An emotion is like a cloud passing through the sky. Sometimes it is fear or anger, sometimes it is happiness or love, sometimes it is compassion. But none of them ultimately constitute a self. They are just what they are, each manifesting its own quality. With this understanding, we can cultivate the emotions that seem helpful and simply let the others be, without aversion, without suppression, without identification.”

— Joseph Goldstein

26. “On a boat in the middle of a great storm, one wise, calm person can bring everyone to safety. The.”

— Joseph Goldstein

27. “Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, a great Dzogchen master of the last century, taught, “There is one thing we always need, and that is the watchman named mindfulness, the guard who is on the lookout for when we get carried away in mindlessness.”

— Joseph Goldstein

28. “True humility is the absence of anyone to be proud.” Humility is not a stance; it is simply the absence of self. In the same way, relationship is the absence of separation, and it can be felt with each breath, each sensation, each thought, each cloud in the sky, each person that we meet. “And being nothing, you are everything. That is all.”

— Joseph Goldstein

29. “When we are with people and feeling bored, can we listen a little more carefully, stepping off the train of our own inner commenting? If we are sitting in meditation and feeling uninterested, can we come in closer to the object, not with force but with gentleness and care? What is this experience we call the breath? If someone were holding your head under water, would the breath be boring? Each breath is actually sustaining our life. Can we be with it fully, just once?”

— Joseph Goldstein

30. “In the moment that we awaken from being lost in a thought or feeling or reaction, in that very moment we can recognize the empty, clear, skylike nature of awareness itself. In that moment of wakefulness, we get a glimpse of freedom. And instead of judging ourselves for all the times we do get lost, which happen again and again, we can delight in each moment of awakening.”

— Joseph Goldstein

31. “Why be unhappy about something if it can be remedied? And what is the use of being unhappy about something if it cannot be remedied?”

— Joseph Goldstein

32. “One of the great misconceptions we often carry throughout our lives is that our perceptions of ourselves and the world are basically accurate and true, that they reflect some stable, ultimate reality. This misconception leads to tremendous suffering, both globally and in our personal life situations.”

— Joseph Goldstein

33. “Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.”

— Joseph Goldstein

34. “It’s always helpful to have a sense of humor about one’s own mental foibles. By.”

— Joseph Goldstein

35. “This attachment to the body also deeply conditions our fear of death. The more we cling, the harder it is to let go.”

— Joseph Goldstein

36. “The emphasis in meditation is very much on undistracted awareness: not thinking about things, not analyzing, not getting lost in the story, but just seeing the nature of what is happening in the mind. Careful, accurate observation of the moment’s reality is the key to the whole process.”

— Joseph Goldstein

37. “The commitment to morality, or non-harming, is a source of tremendous strength, because it helps free the mind from the remorse of having done unwholesome actions. Freedom from remorse leads to happiness. Happiness leads to concentration. Concentration brings wisdom. And wisdom is the source of peace and freedom in our lives.”

— Joseph Goldstein

38. “On the deepest level, problems such as war and starvation are not solved by economics and politics alone. Their source is prejudice and fear in the human heart – and their solution also lies in the human heart.”

— Joseph Goldstein

39. “In meditation practice, we build the energy of awareness until it grows powerful enough to see entirely different levels of reality.”

— Joseph Goldstein

40. “Another aspect of wrong view that we will discuss in much greater detail in later chapters is the deeply conditioned sense of “I,” of self. On the relative level, of course, we move and speak and act as individuals, as selves. Yet on a deeper level, and with close attention, we can see through this appearance and experience the place of nonseparation from others and from the world. This is the realization of selflessness.”

— Joseph Goldstein

41. “The heart qualities of faith, confidence, and trust are actual powers we can cultivate. In Buddhist texts they are likened to a magical gem that settles impurities in water. Faith in the possibility of awakening, confidence in the moment’s experience and in the nature of awareness itself, trust in the direction of our lives – all of these settle doubt, confusion, and agitation. They create an inner environment of clarity, stillness, and beauty.”

— Joseph Goldstein

42. “No deed is good that one regrets having done.”

— Joseph Goldstein

43. “Merit” is the usual translation of the Pali word punna, which more literally means “virtue” or that which purifies and cleanses the life stream, bringing good results.”

— Joseph Goldstein

44. “The intent here is not to suppress whatever feelings we may have, but to communicate in a way that fosters connection rather than divisiveness.”

— Joseph Goldstein

45. “We can then see for ourselves the obvious truth that when we cling or hold on to that which changes, we suffer.”

— Joseph Goldstein

46. “But in their deeper meaning, these refuges always point back to our own actions and mind states. Although there may be many false starts and dead ends as we begin our journey, if our interest is sincere, we soon make a life-changing discovery: what we are seeking is within us.”

— Joseph Goldstein

47. “At first, as we undertake the cultivation of compassion, we may feel genuine empathy with others in pain or difficulty. This happens when we take the time to stop and feel what is really going on – even for just a few moments before rushing on with our lives.”

— Joseph Goldstein

48. “The second unwholesome action to avoid is stealing – taking that which doesn’t belong to us.”

— Joseph Goldstein

49. “We can also strengthen the quality of ardor by reflecting on the transiency of all phenomena. Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.”

— Joseph Goldstein

50. “The meditative journey is not about always feeling good. Many times we may feel terrible. That’s fine. What we want is to open to the entire range of what this mind and body are about. Sometimes we feel wonderful and happy and inspired, and at other times we deeply feel different aspects of suffering.”

— Joseph Goldstein