“We would all say that deep down, all we want is to be happy. Yet we don’t have a realistic understanding of what happiness really is. Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure.”Noah Levine Refuge Recovery (2014)
“Everything is impermanent—every pleasure, every pain, every body. But the survival instincts crave permanence and control. The body wants pleasure to stay forever and pain to go away forever.”Noah Levine Refuge Recovery (2014)
“The next step in the process of liberation is to break this chain reaction of suffering whenever life is unpleasant and feeling content only when life is pleasurable.”Noah Levine The Heart of the Revolution (2011)
“The greatest satisfaction comes not from chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, but from the radical acceptance of life as it is, without fighting and clinging to passing desires.”Noah Levine Against the Stream (2007)
“If our definition of happiness is "experiencing that which is pleasurable," we are going to be disappointed a lot of the time.”Noah Levine The Heart of the Revolution (2011)
“Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. True happiness exists as the spacious and compassionate heart's willingness to feel whatever is present.”Noah Levine Against the Stream (2007)