Insightful

The Eightfold Path, however, is holistic. Each branch is intrinsically linked, and intended to be followed concurrently. Without understanding the seven other forms of guidance, let alone practising them, mindfulness becomes stripped of its essential meaning

We have never before had access to so many perspectives, ideas, and information. Much of it is fleetingly interesting but ultimately inconsequential—not to be confused with expertise, let alone wisdom.

Mindfulness is not about achieving or gaining, it’s about acceptance and the relinquishing of material desire. When you’re charging $10 a month with the promise of a ‘better life’, can you really be holding true to that compassionate and egalitarian vision?

The trick is to repackage your motivation to change your perspective, making the process of achieving your goals as important as the result, thus helping to avoid an anti-climax upon crossing the finish line

When, in the 1970s, the Sex Pistols sang “There is no future,” there was at least a confrontational relish to it. Now there’s just dread.

What happens to a society that loses its capacity for awe and wonder at things to come?

Finding meaning in something random was described by researchers as an important factor in the formation of paranormal and delusional beliefs, and has been found to be implicated in vulnerability to schizophrenia.

The dearth of optimistic visions of the future, at least in the United States, is central to the psychic atmosphere of this bleak era. Pessimism is everywhere: in opinion polls, in rising suicide rates and falling birthrates, and in the downwardly mobile trajectory of millennials.

Identifying as someone who categorically rejects books suggests a much larger deficiency of character.