How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He handed me back the wrench, saying, "The world's a puzzle; no need to make sense out of it." (P.48)
Philosophers and religious teachers usually try to tell us why reality exists, or what the answers to intellectual puzzles are. Socrates takes the complete opposite approach. He says the trick is to learn not to worry about it. You know, like the song: "Don't Worry Be Happy."
Quote #2
The world was peopled with minds, whirling faster than any wind, in search of distraction and escape from the predicament of change, the dilemma of life and death—seeking purpose, security, enjoyment, trying to make sense of the mystery. Everyone everywhere lived a confused, bitter search. Reality never matched their dreams, happiness was just around the corner—a corner they never turned.
And the source of it all was the human mind. (1.107-108)
This passage from one of Dan's visions hammers home a key point of the book: your mind is the source of your troubles.
Quote #3
"I'd better redefine some terms for you. "Mind" is one of those slippery terms like "love." The proper definition depends on your state of consciousness. Look at it this way. You have a brain that directs the body, stores information, and plays with that information. We refer to the brain's abstract processes as "the intellect." Nowhere have I mentioned mind. The brain and the mind are not the same. The brain is real; the mind isn't.
"Mind" is an illusory reflection of cerebral fidgeting. It comprises all the random, uncontrolled thoughts that bubble into awareness from the subconscious. Consciousness is not mind; awareness is not mind; attention is not mind. Mind is an obstruction, an aggravation. It is a kind of evolutionary mistake in the human being, a primal weakness in the human experiment. I have no use for the mind.” (2.35-36)
This quote is Socrates' answer to Dan's objection that the mind is to be credited with many accomplishments such as science and art. The teacher distinguishes between the mind and the intellect. While the latter can be helpful, Socrates says, the former is a problem. So yeah, he totally trashes the mind in this quote. He isn't divided in his opinion at all.
Quote #4
“The brain can be a tool. It can recall phone numbers, solve math puzzles, or create poetry. In this way, it works for the rest of the body, like a tractor. But when you can't stop thinking of that math problem or phone number, or when troubling thoughts and memories arise without your intent, it's not your brain working, but your mind wandering. Then the mind controls you; then the tractor has run wild." (2.40)
When Socrates says he's against the mind, he's not opposing math or science or poetry. He says those things aren't of the mind; they're of the the brain or the intellect. The mind is all the bad stuff. One might find this correct or a little too convenient.
Quote #5
"Stressful thoughts reflect a conflict with reality. Stress happens when the mind resists what is." (3.8)
Okay so imagine you're stressed out over your paper that's due tomorrow, and you haven't even started. According to Socrates, the stress is because you're not accepting the truth of the situation. If you were a peaceful warrior, you wouldn't wish reality were otherwise. In fact, you wouldn't care one way or the other about the paper; you'd just do your best and be happy no matter what.
Quote #6
"The birth of the mind is the death of the senses" (6.22)
In other words, once the mind and language take over just a few years after birth, people tend to lose their ability to appreciate their sensory experience. Basically, Socrates is saying everything was better back in the day when you were six months old and had no mind.
Quote #7
Socrates waved his arm in a sweeping gesture, taking in the palms high above our heads that nearly touched the Plexiglas canopy of the geodesic dome. "You now see everything through a veil of associations about things, projected over a direct, simple awareness. You've "seen it all before": it's like watching a movie for the twentieth time. You see only memories of things, so you become bored, trapped in your mind. This is why you have to "lose your mind" before you can come to your senses." (6.27)
Thoughts, concepts, names, memories—all these things dull sensory experience like grime on a window, according to Socrates. You gotta wax on, wax off that grime.
Quote #8
"But the mind is like a phantom that lives only in the past or future. Its only power over you is to draw your attention out of the present." (6.80)
The mind takes your attention away from its current job and over to the memory of that time in middle school when the buttoned-up Latin teacher suddenly quit his job and became a biker metalhead and—what were we saying?
Quote #9
I realized now that the Grim Reaper, the Death Dan Millman had so feared, had been his great illusion. And so his life, too, had been an illusion, a problem, nothing more than a humorous incident when Consciousness had forgotten itself. (8.67)
According to Dan near the end of the book, death and our lives are just temporary little illusions not to fret over; what we actually are is Consciousness, an eternal awareness that is forever changing. Compared to that, everything in this mortal life is unimportant.
Quote #10
Well, I thought, now I am playing Dan Millman again, and I might as well get used to it for a few more seconds in eternity, until this, too, passes. But now I know that I am not only the single piece of flesh—and that secret makes all the difference! (8.76)
Returned from his final vision to an ordinary mortality, Dan sees that life is no big deal. The big secret he's figured out from going through the gate is that he's one with everything. He says that brings him peace and happiness.