## Metadata - Author: [[Anthony De Mello and J. Francis Stroud]] - Full Title: Awareness - Category: #books ## Highlights - But what I’d like to stress right now is self-observation. You are listening to me, but are you picking up any other sounds besides the sound of my voice as you listen to me? Are you aware of your reactions as you listen to me? If you aren’t, you’re going to be brainwashed. Or else you are going to be influenced by forces within you of which you have no awareness at all. And even if you’re aware of how you react to me, are you simultaneously aware of where your reaction is coming from? Maybe you are not listening to me at all; maybe your daddy is listening to me. Do you think that’s possible? Of course it is. Again and again in my therapy groups I come across people who aren’t there at all. Their daddy is there, their mommy is there, but they’re not there. ([Location 584](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005GFBP6W&location=584)) - The great mystics of the East are really referring to that “I,” not to the “me.” As a matter of fact, some of these mystics tell us that we begin first with things, with an awareness of things; then we move on to an awareness of thoughts (that’s the “me”); and finally we get to awareness of the thinker. Things, thoughts, thinker. ([Location 620](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005GFBP6W&location=620)) - There’s a lovely saying of Tranxu, a great Chinese sage, that I took the trouble to learn by heart. It goes: “When the archer shoots for no particular prize, he has all his skills; when he shoots to win a brass buckle, he is already nervous; when he shoots for a gold prize, he goes blind, sees two targets, and is out of his mind. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares! He thinks more of winning than of shooting, and the need to win drains him of power.” ([Location 764](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005GFBP6W&location=764)) - Someone once said, “The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong.” ([Location 774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005GFBP6W&location=774)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Is it possible for the rose to say, “I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? Or is it possible for the lamp to say, “I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people”? Or can a tree say, “I’ll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? These are images of what love is about. ([Location 793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005GFBP6W&location=793))