Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life
and reduce attachment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all
beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they
will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to
have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is
true spirituality.
***
Whatever joy there is
in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world
All comes from desiring myself to be happy.
***
If you were to draw one essential message from the
fact of reincarnation, it would be: Develop a good heart that longs for other
beings to find lasting happiness, and acts to secure that happiness. Nourish
and practice kindness.
The Dalai Lama has said: “There is no need for
temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is
our temple; my philosophy is kindness.”
***
Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and
gravity, . . . we shall harness . . . the
energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man
will have discovered fire.
***
Real love is
not based on attachment, but on altruism. In this case, your compassion will
remain as a humane response to suffering as long as beings continue to suffer.
-His Holiness the Dalai
Lama
***
- "All the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love". ~ Eleanor Farjeon
- "Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more". ~ Erica Jong in How to Save Your Own Life (1977).
- "Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it". ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- "Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love". ~ Neil Gaiman, as Rose Walker in SANDMAN #65
- "If a thing loves, it is infinite". ~ William Blake
- "It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving". ~ Richard Braunstein
- "If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater." ~ Tanis HalfElven from the Dragonlance saga
- "Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile". ~ Franklin Jones
- "Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand". ~ Mother Teresa
- "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own". ~ Robert Heinlein in Stranger In A Strange Land
- "* "Alternate version; Love: the condition in which the welfare and happiness of another becomes essential to your own.
- "Love is the only rational act". ~ Stephen Levine
- "Love not what you are, but what you may become". ~ Miguel de Cervantes
- "May you love as long as you live and live as long as you love". ~ Robert Heinlein
- "Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness". ~ Bertrand Russell
- "Take away love, and our earth is a tomb. - Robert Browning
- "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart". ~ Helen Keller
- "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return". ~ Eden Ahbez
- "The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others". ~ Vincent van Gogh
- "The more you judge, the less you love". ~ Honore de Balzac
- "The wounds of love can only be healed by the one who made them. Original: Amoris vulnus idem sanat, qui facit". ~ Syrus Publilius
- "They do not love that do not show their love ~ William Shakespeare in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act i, Sc.2
- "To be loved, love. (Si vis amari, ama.) ~ Ovid
- "True love is giving all you have to someone you know you're going to lose ~ Ray H Wall
- "Two persons who love each other are in a place more holy than the interior of a church". ~ William Phelps
- "When the evening of this life comes, we shall be judged on Love". ~ St. John of the Cross
- "We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love". ~ Tom Robbins
- "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will finally know peace". ~ Jimi Hendrix
- "Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other". ~ C. G. Jung
- "With love and patience, nothing is impossible". ~ Daisaku Ikeda
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. –Mohandas Gandhi
Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house, that’s what it means.
-George Burns
If you love the children of others, you will love your own even better. –anon
Some day, after we have
mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, . . . we
shall harness . . . the energies of love. Then, for the second
time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
TEILHARD
DE CHARDIN
* * *
O love, O pure deep love, be here, be now
Be all; worlds dissolve into your stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with you brighter than cold stars:
Make me your servant, your breath, your core.
RUMI
* * *
Hatred and bitterness can never cure
the disease of fear; only love can do that. We must evolve for all human
conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The
foundation of such a method is love.
MLK
Jr.
* * *
Often it is only when
people suddenly feel they are losing their partner that they realize how much
they love them. Then they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the
more the other person escapes them, and the more fragile the relationship
becomes.
So often we want
happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it
brings only more sorrow. Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that
something that will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: “How can we
possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it?” How often attachment is mistaken
for love!
Even when the
relationship is a good one, love can be spoiled by attachment with its
insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is gone, all you have
left to show for it are the “souvenirs” of love, the scars of attachment.
* * *
To love and be loved is to feel
the sun from both sides.
-David Viscott
* * *
When we do not express love in our words and actions it is like honey hidden in a rock.
-Amma
* * *
Love is so exquisitely elusive. It cannot be bought, cannot be badgered, cannot be hijacked. It is available only in one rare form: as the natural response of a healthy mind and healthy heart.
-Eknath Easwaran Words to Live By
* * *
* * *
S.G. Buddha
* * *
I remember how people would often come to see my master Jamyang
Khyentse simply to ask for his guidance for the moment of death. He was so
loved and revered throughout
“Be free of attachment and aversion. Keep your mind pure. And unite your mind with Buddha.”
* * *
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