"Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive"
About this Quote
Speed is the easiest way to feel in control, which is exactly why Milarepa distrusts it. "Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive" sounds like a paradox designed to tease the impatient mind into revealing itself: the part of us that equates urgency with virtue, motion with meaning. Milarepa, the Tibetan yogi-poet who famously turned a life of violence and vengeance toward radical spiritual discipline, isn’t offering a productivity hack. He’s pointing at a deeper mechanics of change: transformation fails when it’s fueled by the ego’s timeline.
The line works because it uses the language of travel to critique the traveler. "Arrive" isn’t about getting to a place; it’s about becoming the kind of person who can live there. In Buddhist practice, rushing often means grasping - trying to force an outcome, treating enlightenment like a finish line. That craving creates its own drag: sloppy attention, performative devotion, spiritual bypassing. Slow, by contrast, is not laziness but precision. It implies watching the mind closely enough to stop reenacting the same compulsions under a new banner called "progress."
Context matters: Milarepa’s authority comes from extremity. He’s remembered for ascetic practice in harsh conditions, for songs that translate doctrine into plain, memorable rhythm. The archaic "ye shall" gives the proverb a scriptural tone, but its edge is pragmatic: steadiness beats drama. The subtext is almost unsentimental: if you want to get somewhere real, stop sprinting in circles.
The line works because it uses the language of travel to critique the traveler. "Arrive" isn’t about getting to a place; it’s about becoming the kind of person who can live there. In Buddhist practice, rushing often means grasping - trying to force an outcome, treating enlightenment like a finish line. That craving creates its own drag: sloppy attention, performative devotion, spiritual bypassing. Slow, by contrast, is not laziness but precision. It implies watching the mind closely enough to stop reenacting the same compulsions under a new banner called "progress."
Context matters: Milarepa’s authority comes from extremity. He’s remembered for ascetic practice in harsh conditions, for songs that translate doctrine into plain, memorable rhythm. The archaic "ye shall" gives the proverb a scriptural tone, but its edge is pragmatic: steadiness beats drama. The subtext is almost unsentimental: if you want to get somewhere real, stop sprinting in circles.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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