We are what we think.

A few years ago, a friend of mine called me from an unfamiliar number, which was weird since I already had three numbers for him saved into my phone. When I asked how many phone numbers he had, he steadily replied: "Enough."

"Enough" is also the number of journals I keep, and today I'm pulling quotes from the Buddha journal. "The Buddha journal" may sound like something that contains peaceful reflections about the nature of existence, but that's a generous interpretation. It's basically just the fourth Breakaway journal (journals 1 - 3 have been overly-flatteringly excerpted here) with a picture of a Buddha statue on the cover.

So here are some quotes I like from the Buddha journal, which all come from the 2016 calendar year, and I can't imagine they'll mean much to anyone who isn't me, but that's okay.


"This book did start off with a cover page, but it (to my surprise!) ripped out when I tried to peel it back. It and most of the other pages in this book were stuck together. Not very Buddha-like. Or maybe it's me who's not very Buddha-like, to force the page and, in the process, lose it. Maybe this is the year I work on patience..."

"The human mind has an unbelievable capacity to delude itself. I think that incessantly about myself: is this what you think it is, or are you confirmation-biasing the hell out of yourself?"

"When things are uncertain, what's more comforting than the familiar embrace of feeling bad about oneself?"

"That is the source of all that swirls beneath the surface in me right now: this fear that I cannot live up to being me."

"Well, I had a couple of days where I thought I was all Zen, and then I realized today that my betta died, er, a while ago. So I still have a ways to go in terms of being in harmony with life, if it's just being haphazardly extinguished and I'm not even noticing."

"That was the hardest I've pushed myself in a really long time. And it wasn't pleasant, but wow, did it feel good. (Runner's paradox.)"

"I'm tired of being hard on myself."

"I think for a long time I've been scared that meditation might smooth out my spirit, take some of the fire away. But that's not it at all. It's life that sucks away the fire."

"Secretly, you know, I still think it's all going to work out."

"Last weekend, John showed me such a good time in Vegas, and it hit me how foreign it has become for me to feel 'taken care of.'"

"I need space before I can grow, and my life recently has not afforded me that."

"As I finish this, I almost want to tear it out. Why did I write this? I feel like I have moved past many of the motivators for me writing entries such as this in books such as this one."