A mountain is the best medicine for a troubled mind. Seldom does man ponder his own insignificance. He thinks he is master of all things. He thinks the world is his without bonds. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only when he tramps the mountains alone, communing with nature, observing other insignificant creatures about him, to come and go as he will, does he awaken to his own short-lived presence on earth.

I called the world of phenomena an illusion, I called my eyes and my tongue and accident, valueless phenomena. No, that is all over; I have awakened, I have really awakened and have just been born today.

but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.

The 'Muse' is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake.

"Nothing like poetry when you lie awake at night. It keeps the old brain limber. It washes away the mud and sand that keeps on blocking up the bends.

There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

I've had many dreams useless dreams while sleeping. Priceless are those that guide me while awake.

If you look around to find meaning in everything that happens, you will end up disappointed. Sometimes there aren't reasons behind the terrible things that go on. I ask myself, If I knew all the answers, would it help? I lie awake and wonder why I don't have parents and wonder what will become of my brother and me. But when the morning comes, I realize that there's nothing to be done about what has already happened. I can only get up and do my chores and push through the day and find the good in it.

I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.

Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.

"Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you-

The dreams we imagine when we are asleep should not in any way make us doubt the truth of the thoughts we have when we are awake.

Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness. (14)

Dream's evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it-all these and many other problems have for many hundred years demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory.

A statue isn't built from the ground up -- it's chiseled out of a block of marble -- and I often wonder if we aren't likewise shaped by the qualities we lack, outlined by the empty space where the marble used to be. I'll be sitting on a train. I'll be lying awake in bed. I'll be watching a movie; I'll be laughing. And then, all of a sudden, I'll be struck with the paralyzing truth: It's not what we do that makes us who are. It's what we don't do that defines us.

Don't be afraid to speak out. Your human rights story could be the Inspirational that opens the window to someone else's awakening. Let's draw open the curtains together.

There hadn't been one specific moment. It was like gradualy waking up. You go from being asleep to the space between dreaming and awake and then into consciousness. It's a slow process, but when you're awake, there's no mistaking it. There was no mistaking that it had been love.

But I know just what it feels like to have a voice in the back of my head, like a face that I hold inside, face that awakes when I close my eyes, face that watches everytime I lie, face that laughs everytime I fall. (It watches EVERYTHING) ... But the face inside is hearing me, right beneath my skin.

When one realises one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.

A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store. If a man doesn't fit, you can't exchange him seven days later for a gorgeous cashmere sweater. And a store always smells good. A store can awaken a lust for things you never even knew you needed. And when your fingers first grasp those shiny, new bags?

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

Awaken from the slumber of despair, as the heart repairs and memories dance to the song called time.

The content structures of our existence, whether of mind or body, are helpful in our daily activities. Nevertheless, these can also be very manipulative and restrictive concerning conscious awakening. Thoughts and emotions can be excellent students of life. However, they cannot and should never be the teacher or master of this mystery.