Humans seem to be happy just as long as they have something in the future to look forward to, whether this is a good time tomorrow or an eternal life beyond physical death.

In order to really enjoy the pleasures of life, we need to face the painful parts, too.

Pain and pleasure take turns: constant pleasure is a stimulus that must either lose strength or grow. And this growth will either harden the sense buds with its friction, or turn into p...

The real problem doesn't come from feeling pain the in moment, but from the way we use memory and anticipation.

The object or event we fear is not always something happening in the immediate future. It may be the problem of next month’s bills, a social or natural disas...

So, rather than feeling anxious about it, accept this insecurity as a part of life by being aware of the present moment. This will help you find peace and contentment.

We have no reassurance regarding what the future will bring and even the best predictions are sti...

We think that making sense out of life means we have in some way to fit the sequence of events into a rigid framework.

Life is meaningful to us if we can understand it in terms of fixed codes, rules and law. But if this is what “making sense out of life” means, we have...

The brain is in pursuit of happiness, and because it is much more preoccupied with the future than the present, it sees happiness as an assurance of a future with pleasures, that must be cramped into the span of a few years.

And the “brainy” econom...

We usually don't trust the “snap” solutions our wandering minds find, but the truth is that these easy and almost unconscious solutions is what the brain is supposed to deliver.

When it's functioning the right way, the brain is the highest form of “instinctual wisdom.”

There is a viewpoint from which the “rationalization” of life is not rational. The brain is clever enough to see the vicious circle which it has made for itself. But it can't do nothing about it.

You may acknowledge that worrying brings no benefits, but that doesn't st...

If a problem can be solved, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing.

Doing something about a problem that you don't understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands.

Being aware of life means experiencing it as it is in the present moment, without judgments or ideas about it.

You have to see and feel what you are "experiencing as it is, and not as it is named".

Memories are abstract things: they symbolize knowledge about things rather than of things. Memory never captures the core and the tangible reality of an experience.

"It is, as it were, the corpse of an experience, from which the life has vanished. What we know by memor...

1. Compare it with the memories of other experiences, to name and define it. This is to interpret it in accordance with the the past.
2. Be aware of it as it is, forget past and future, let the present be all, and thus do not even stop to think, "I a...

Silence is the only way to discover something new to talk about. The person constantly talking, without stopping to look and listen, is repeating himself over and over again.

The same thing happens with thinking, which is really silent talking. Thinking is by nature not op...