Quotes by Stephen Levine

There is nothing to do but be.
~ Stephen Levine, 1937- ~

Examining "Who am I" is like beginning to go to the movies just to see
how the movie is made.  As we first sit down in the dark theater we find that we are relating to the objects of the melodrama, the motion on the screen.  We pay attention to the story line, which we notice is like the contents of the mind, allowing it to unfold as it will without judgment or the least interference.  As we focus our attention on the process, we begin to see that frames that constitute film are like separate thoughts; then we begin to recognize the process buy which the images are produced, and it breaks our enthrallment with the story line.  We notice that ll the activity is just a projection on a blank screen.  That all these figures dancing before us are an illusion produced by light passing through various densities onthe film.  We see the film is like our conditioning, a repetitious imprint of images gone by.  We see that the whole melodrama is a passing show of motion and change ... We discover that all we imagined ourselves to be — all our becomiung, our memory, all the contents of mind — is just old film running off.  The projectionist has died.  "Who am I?" can't be answered.  We cannot know the truth.  We can only be it.  Constantly living life in the past tense, rummaging through consciousness to decide who and what we are, the truth is obscured. The truth cannot be discovered in the contents of the mind.  Only the untruth of false identification can be uncovered.  Going beyond the false, the truth is revealed.

A drop of pond water
under the microscope
just like in science class
but now your are the pond
& the microscope is mindfulness

The process of growth is, it seems, the art of falling down.. Growth is measured by the gentleness and awareness with which we once again pick ourselves up, the lightness with which we dust ourselves off, the openess with which we continue and take the next unknown step,  beyond our edge, beyond our holding,  into the remarkable mystery of being.

Love is not what we become but who we already are

Healing is bringing mercy and Awareness into that which we have held in judgment and fear.

Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?