Quotes by Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist

Explore a curated collection of 17 quotes by Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Discover timeless wisdom, insightful thoughts, and memorable words that have inspired readers around the world. Browse through the gallery below and click on any quote to read more.

The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a s — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contras — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
We took a bus to the nearby monastery of one of the last great Tang dynasty Chan masters, Yun-men. Yun-men was known for — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demons — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
I know very little with anything approaching certainty. I know that I was born, that I exist, and that I will die. For t — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
I am empty only in the sense that there is nothing fixed or intrinsically real at the core of my identity as a person.Re — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
No matter how hard I tried, I was incapable of giving more importance to a hypothetical, post-mortem existence than to t — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
I was perplexed by the failure of teachers at school to address what seemed the most urgent matter of all: the bewilderi — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
Gotama's awakening involved a radical shift of perspective rather than the gaining of privileged knowledge into some hig — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
[Mindfulness] is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine. It serves as an antidote to theism, a cure for sent — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
Without relying on any deities, mantras, or mandalas, without having to master the intricacies of any doctrine or philos — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
Much of what animated me in those days I now recognize as the romantic yearnings of an idealistic, alienated, and aimles — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
For me, Buddhism is like a living organism. If it is to flourish outside self-enclosed ghettos of believers, it will hav — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
I was encouraged to ask in all seriousness what this life is for, what matters most for myself and others, what non-nego — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
After all, people desire immortality and do not wish to embrace the inescapable reality of death; they long for happines — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
Buddhism has become for me a philosophy of action and responsibility. It provides a framework of values, ideas, and prac — Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist