Self-Inquiry Quotes

The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.

A spiritual life is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. How do you live? What's true? How do you respond? It's not about living by beliefs; it's about wanting to know.

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to.

Nobody is going to pour truth into your brain. It's something you have to find out for yourself.

Who am I? is the only question worth asking and the only one never answered.

Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind. Only keep the question, 'What is the best way of helping other people?'

Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers.

The question to everyone's answer is usually asked from within.

I start asking a lot of questions about my own life, and it's not necessarily fun, but it's a good exercise.

We can't give the truth to someone as an object, we can only point to it, inviting inspection. It is in that spirit that we can hear or read a teaching and then look at our own lives, at our own experiences to see whether anything might have been revealed about them.

Most of us don't spend any time knowing ourselves. We just keep reacting.

As you go down the path of life, ask whats true. Not who else believes it.

...Bliss is not something to be got. On the other hand you are always Bliss. This desire [for Bliss] is born of the sense of incompleteness. To whom is this sense of incompleteness? Enquire. In deep sleep you were blissful. Now you are not so. What has interposed between that Bliss and this non-bliss? It is the ego. Seek its source and find you are Bliss.

I began to realize that thinking itself is nothing but the process of asking and answering questions.

Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own.

The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious.

We must discover how to ask simple questions of ourselves.

Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, 'What is it?' without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end.

Evil does not question itself. Only Hope questions itself.

Self-inquiry is the process and the goal also. 'I am' is the goal and the final reality. To hold to it with effort is self-inquiry. When spontaneous and natural it is realization.

Prison gives you time to reflect.

'What is celebration?' Rather than dancing, rather than laughing, rather than loving, rather than enjoying this silence, the mind asks: 'What is celebration?'

Meditation is a good starting point, or even a little bit of contemplative reflection, asking questions like: Who am I without my name or form? What is my purpose if there is one? What do I want out of my life? What am I grateful for? Just a little bit of reflection like that starts you on the journey.

I use the word inquiry as synonymous with The Work...Inquiry is a way to end confusion and to experience internal peace, even in a world of apparent chaos. Above all else, inquiry is about realizing that all the answers we ever need are always available inside us.