Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise – then you will discover the fullness of your life. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
Our life is frittered away by detail. – H.D. Thoreau
Our perception that we have “no time” is one of the distinctive marks of modern Western culture. – Margaret Visser
Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions. -Frank Lloyd Wright
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. – Bertrand Russell
Simplicity doesn’t mean to live in misery and poverty.
You have what you need, and you don’t have what you don’t need. - Charan Singh
Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. – Benjamin Franklin
Try to unite the divine in you to the divine in all things. last words of Plotinus
The transcendent One is beyond anything we can conceive. To say that it is absolutely wonderful or perfect or beautiful—in fact, even to say it exists in any sense we can understand—is to fall far short of the reality. It can’t be described, it can only be experienced when the soul releases its attachment to the inner and outer worlds, and plunges deep within into the very heart of reality. . . . The one “exists” beyond space and time, so there is no question of a beginning or an end to the process of creative emanation. It occurs only “now”—which means it occurs throughout all eternity.
– Plotinus (202 – 270 AD)
(Plotinus would say that) The soul does not, strictly speaking, exist in space and time like the body, but is rooted in transcendental reality. . . .While the outer world contains tangible three-dimensional objects like trees and bees and seas, the inner world is non-dimensional and contains the archetypal patterns or “ideas” on which external forms are based. . . .
When consciousness impresses itself on matter, chaos is transformed into cosmos, order emerges from entropy, and the organic world available to our senses appears.
Matter has no creative potency of its own but is the outer substance that the living forces of the inner world use to create a universe in which souls can play. . . .
Plotinus says the soul is, in a sense, “amphibious,” living sometimes “here” in the deep and ever-turbulent waters of material existence, and part of the time “there” in a changeless land of light. “The chains of our senses keep us bound here, as if we’re trapped in a cave.”
-Linda Johnsen
The Man who lives a life of self awareness
is his own driver and skillfully finds his way. -Plotinus
Try to unite the divine in you to the divine in all things. -last words of Plotinus, 270 AD
* * *
He who would follow me must leave self behind. -Jesus
* * *
The value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. -Einstein
* * *
There ain’t no devil; he’s just God when he’s drunk. - Don Rollins quoting somebody ?
* * *
Emotional intelligence—Goleman’s term for self-awareness, altruism, personal motivation, empathy, and the ability to love and be loved by friends, spouses, partners, and family members. Emotional Intelligence is not fixed at birth and can be cultivated at any stage of life. – Larry Dossey, MD
* * *
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
***
Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing into mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality.
GARY ZUKA
***
The most valuable learning is not about memorizing facts and figures. It is not about higher grade point averages and accumulating degrees. It is about life itself, and its impact is on the heart. -Rodney Smith, "Lessons From the Dying"
***
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous. -THOMAS MERTON
***
Wisdom does not mean knowledge but experiential understanding. Wisdom helps you to change radically your habits and perceptions, as you discover the constantly changing, interconnected nature of the whole of existence.-Martine Batchelor, "Meditation For Life"
***
Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
***
It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
***
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous. -THOMAS MERTON
***
Mitakuye oyasin, say the Lakota.
"All beings are my relations."
"So far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice. Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth: and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly." ~ Ethan Allen
A wave in the sea, seen in one way, seems to have a distinct identity, an end and a beginning, a birth and a death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn’t really exist but is just the behavior of water, “empty” of any separate identity but “full” of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realize that it is something that has been made temporarily possible by wind and water, and is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realize that every wave is related to every other wave.
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Live your life so that when you die, even the undertaker is sad. Mark Twain
If you do not change your direction, you are likely to end up where you are headed.
~Ancient Chinese Proverb
The first part of the spiritual journey should properly be called psychological rather than spiritual because it involves peeling away the myths and illusions that have misinformed us.
Sam Keen
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
-Eden Philpotts
May I have the serenity to accept
that which I can’t change,
Courage to change the things I can and should,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
* * *
There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world
than a transformation of the way we raise our children.
-Marianne Williamson
* * *
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
-Mark Twain
* * *
What everybody knows is usually comfortable and untrue. –Naomi Bliven
* * *
Example is the school of mankind; indeed they will learn at no other.
* * *
The voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new vistas, but in having new eyes. -Proust
* * *
I ASSIGN YOU to be a beautiful, good, kind, awakened, soulful person, a true work of art as we say, ser humano, a true human being. In a world filled with so much darkness, such a soul shines like gold; can be seen from a far distance; is dramatically different.
… Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion. Be outrageous in forgiving. Be dramatic in reconciling. Mistakes? Back up and make them as right as you can, then move on. Be off the charts in kindness. In whatever you are called to, strive to be devoted to it in all aspects large and small. Fall short? Try again. Mastery is made in increments, not in leaps. Be brave, be fierce, be visionary. Mend the parts of the world that are "within your reach." To strive to live this way is the most dramatic gift you can ever give to the world.
Consider yourselves assigned.
—Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., from An Assignment for You from Dr. Estés
* * *
ORDINARY RICHES CAN be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. – Oscar Wilde
* * *
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. . .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.
* * *
Business is a good game—lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money. –Nolan Bushnell, Atari founder (fascinating, and dangerous)
* * *
The most important thing is not to get trapped in what I see everywhere in the West, a “shopping mentality”: shopping around from master to master, teaching to teaching, without any continuity or real, sustained dedication to any one discipline. Nearly all the great spiritual masters of all traditions agree that the essential thing is to master one way, one path to the truth, by following one tradition with all your heart and mind to the end of the spiritual journey, while, of course, remaining open and respectful toward the insights of all others. In Tibet we used to say: “knowing one, you accomplish all.” The modem faddish idea that we can always keep all our options open and so never need commit ourselves to anything is one of the greatest and most dangerous delusions of our culture, and one of ego’s most effective ways of sabotaging our spiritual search.
* * *
In music, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness ... I see what people call God in all these things. - Pablo Casals
* * *
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something;
in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
-Bertrand Russell
* * *
It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society, it is belief. -George Bernard Shaw
* * *
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. -African proverb
* * *
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. -William James
* * *
A so-called fault is a weak place where character can change. -Robert Aitkin Roshi
* * *
We see the world all wrong, and that’s why we suffer.
-Kate Lula Wheeler
* * *
Terrorism is the war of the poor; war is the terrorism of the rich.
-Peter Ustinov
* * *
Our ancestry streches back through the life forms and into the stars, back into the beginnings of the primeval fireball. This universe is a single multiform energetic unfolding of matter, mind, intelligence and life.
-Brian Swimme
* * *
God has arranged everything in the universe in consideration of everything else.
-Hildegard of Bingen
* * *
The human person is a centre of consciousness which is capable of infinite extension and as it grows it becomes more and more integrated with the whole complex of persons who make up humanity.
-Bede Griffiths
* * *
The supernova is a multivalent event: simultaneously a profound destruction and yet an exuberant creativity.
-Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme
* * *
Relation is the essence of everything that is.
-Meister Eckhart
* * *
Our vitality depends upon the connections we establish and the communion we share. . .
Our gifts, as lifegiving as their full expression can be for us, are foremost for others. . .
Communion that honors the other, that reverences the Holy One in the other and in the self—this is what we embrace. Connectedness is primary. Communion is essential.
-Judy Cannato
* * *
As holons with consciousness, we are able to move to new levels of awareness. We are capable of negotiating the tension between self-preservation and self-adaptation in a way that affirms both our agency and our connectedness to all that is. The capacity for self-transcendene means that we are able to evolve in complexity. Our cognitive, moral, and ethical awareness can develop greater depth as we engage life and grow in our ability to know what is valuable and what is peripheral. We have the ability to question and to dream, to expand our vision and live out of other-centered concern. Our capacity for self-transcendence asserts that healing is possible, that we are more than our wounds and our scars. As we engage this capacity, we grow in freedom. As we embrace the process that allows us to transcend, fear begins to fall away as we recognize our value as part of the whole that is continuing to emerge.
-Judy Cannato
* * *
We all long for heaven where God is, but we have it in our power to be in heaven with Him at this very moment. But being happy with Him now means:
Loving as He loves,
Helping as He helps,
Giving as He gives,
Serving as He serves,
Rescuing as He rescues,
Being with Him twenty-four hours,
Touching Him in his distressing disguise.
-Mother Theresa
* * *
Great people talk about ideas
Average people talk about things
Small people talk about other people.
* * *
"Human beings are not our enemy. Our enemy is not the other person. Our
enemy is the violence, ignorance, and injustice in us and in the other
person. When we are armed with compassion and understanding, we fight not
against other people, but against the tendency to invade, to dominate, and
to exploit."
Thich Nhat Hanh
* * *
Time spent thinking about past and future is time taken away from living. -Barry Bub, MD
* * *
What is a great spiritual practitioner? A person who lives always in the presence of his or her own true self, someone who has found and who uses continually the springs and sources of profound inspiration. As the modem English writer Lewis Thompson wrote:
“Christ, supreme poet, lived truth so passionately that every gesture of his, at once pure Act and perfect Symbol, embodies the transcendent.”
To embody the transcendent is why we are here.
* * *
To be profoundly grateful is the most primary of all religious attitudes. -Ronald Rolheiser
* * *
To be a saint is to be motivated by gratitude. -Ronald Rolheiser
* * *
Proper gratitude is ultimate virtue. It defines sanctity. -Ronald Rolheiser
* * *
Resiliency is the key to love. -Ronald Rolheiser
* * *
Loss and bereavement can remind you sharply of what can happen when in life you do not show your love and appreciation, or ask for forgiveness, and so make you far more sensitive to your loved ones.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said: ‘What I try to teach people is to live in such a way that you say those things while the other person can still hear it.” And Raymond Moody, after his life’s work in near-death research, wrote: “I have begun to realize how near to death we all are in our daily lives. More than ever now I am very careful to let each person I love know how I feel.”
* * *
The only devils in the world are the ones running around in our own hearts.
That is where the battle must be fought. -Mahatma Gandhi.
* * *
Sensation of the Mystical
("found poetry")
The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience
is the sensation of the mystical.
It is the sower of all true science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty,
which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms -
this knowledge, this feeling,
is at the center of true religion.
~ Albert Einstein ~
* * *
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
-- Mark Twain
* * *
In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of their problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility . . . It is our collective and individual responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
The Dalai Lama
* * *
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997).
* * *
Absolutely everything can be enjoyed when it is celebrated. Anything can be enjoyed when we make friends with it. -Arjun Ardagh
* * *
Something we were withholding made us weak,until we found it was ourselves. ~Robert Frost
* * *
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. -Mark Twain
* * *
At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie. -Paulo Coelho
* * *
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.-Paulo Coelho
* * *
What happens once will never happen again. But what happens twice will surely happen a third time.-Paulo Coelho
* * *
God is where you let Him in.-Paulo Coelho
* * *
Don't think about what you've left behind.-Paulo Coelho
* * *
It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.-Paulo Coelho
* * *
May love be your guide in every moment of your life. -Paulo Coelho
* * *
No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it. -Paulo Coelho
* * *
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. -Paulo Coelho
* * *
Don't you ever allow doubts to paralyze your actions. -Paulo Coelho
* * *
The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness. -Paulo Coelho
* * *
Perhaps my most important task
is learning how to skillfully and lovingly choose
the mental events I have in the next few moments.
Perhaps that’s the only thing I can control.
-EDM
***
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
-Confucius
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present. -Eleanor Roosevelt
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. -E.E. Cummings
* * *
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. – Richard Bach
* * *
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. – Georg C Lichtenberg
* * *
Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. ~Joan Wallach Scott
* * *
Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing into mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality.
GARY ZUKAV
* * *
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. -Henry David Thoreau
* * *
The real challenge that defines our humanity is this: how do we take on reality as it unfolds, navigate it, and truly stay awake and alive in this moment of life, whatever its contours. -Jon Kabat Zinn
* * *
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
-Albert Camus
* **
The whole universe is breathing as our breath; we limit the process by our assumption
that we are doing the breathing. - Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom
* * *
Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.- Melody Beattie
* * *
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous. -THOMAS MERTON
* * *
Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you. -Pema Chodron
* * *
Talk about the joys of the unexpected, can they compare with the joys of the expected, of finding everything delightfully and completely what you knew it was going to be?- Elizabeth Bibesco Balloons
* * *
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.- Marcel Proust
* * *
There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy. -Ralph H. Blum
* * *
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -Edward Murrow
* * *
I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship. -Louisa May Alcott
* * *
In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair. - Howard Thurman
* * *
Oh would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us! - Robert Burns
* * *
A problem is a chance for you to do your best. -Duke Ellington
* * *
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.
* * *
The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating.The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination. - John Schaar
Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them.Anne-Sophie SwetchineThe Writings of Madame Swetchine
* * *
Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb.
-Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B, A Tree Full of Angels
* * *
If you have a strong mind and plant in it a firm resolve, you can change
your destiny.- Paramahansa Yogananda
* * *
Laughter is carbonated holiness.- Anne Lamott
* * *
Recipients of our appreciation are apt to express their own gratitude to others, lengthening the unending, golden chain of connections-in-goodness that stretches across the world.
- Mary Ford Grabowsky The Way of Mary
* * *
As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center. -David Steindl-Rast
* * *
A grateful heart is the mainspring of happiness. -Ossian Land
How happy a person is depends upon the depth of his gratitude. -John Miller
Your life is the sum of your present moments. -Jon Kabat-Zinn
It is not the years in your life, but the life in your years that count. -Adlai Stevenson
There are two ways to get enough; one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less. -G.K. Chesterton
A thankful person can find contentment anywhere.
What one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever.
-Mary Jo Putney
The secret of true happiness lies in wanting what you already have.
-Alexandra Stoddard
The older you get the more you realize that kindness is synonymous with happiness.
-Lionel Barrymore
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
-Mother Teresa
* * *
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. -Henry Adams
The quality of person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. -Vince Lombardi
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -Confucius
I think self-awareness is the most important thing towards being a champion.
-Billie Jean King
* * *
Fundamentally, what everyone needs is mental strength and confidence, to manage the mind, just as we manage the outside world. - Amma
* * *
Unless we have a certain degree of mastery over the mind, true peace is difficult to attain.
- Amma
* * *
When we do not express love in our words and actions it is like honey hidden in a rock.
-Amma
* * *
The world is perfect, including our efforts to change it.-Ram Dass
* * *
Success depends upon how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
* * *
There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong.
- L. Mencken
* * *
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not
sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. - Anne Bradstreet
* * *
There are many things to be grateful "for" but, as I ripen with the seasons of life, the many reasons blend into a sacred mystery. And, most deeply, I realize that living gratefully is its own blessing. - Michael Mahoney
* * *
One thing I understand now is that one’s intellect alone won’t pull one through, and that the greatest service it can perform is to open a window for that thing we call the divine spirit.
Hilda Clark (1908), quoted in Plain Living by Catherine Whitmire
* * *
If you look at every human being as a Divine mirror, you will know yourself and understand life. - Sherif Baba
* *
Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.
- Nkosi Johnson Twelve-year-old Zulu boy, living with AIDS
* * *
A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures. –Irish saying
* * *
A well-spent day brings happy sleep. –Leonardo da Vinci
* * *
The higher our flame of altruistic action burns, the more its light will suffuse your life with happiness. Those who possess an altruistic spirit are the happiest people of all.
– Daisaku Ikeda
* * *
Celebrating the spirit of children, may laughter, discovery and wonder guide our way.
–on plaque at Common Ground
* * *
Loss makes artists of us all . . . as we weave new patterns in the fabric of our lives. –Greta Crosby
* * *
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. -Harville Hendricks
* * *
Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. – Thomas Decker
* * *
Whatever helps an individual to be a better person, find peace, and help others is the best path for him or her. - Andi Young
* * *
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length. -Robert Frost
* * *
Memories of loved ones are like songs in our soul. -Margaret Wakeley
* * *
The foremost teacher is he or she who exposes one's faults, and whose advice resonates. -Bruce Wagner
* * *
Oh would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us!- Robert Burns
* * *
To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. -Eckhart Tolle Stillness Speaks
* * *
And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time, and furthermore, to win. - James Baldwin, in Nothing Personal
* * *
One single gift acknowledged in gratefulness has the power to dissolve
the ties of our alienation. - David Steindl-Rast Gratefulness,the Heart of Prayer
* * *
To generous souls every task is noble. - Euripides
* * *
The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others. -Paramahansa Yogananda
* * *
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. -Jonathon Kozol
* * *
The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life. Through a difficult period you can learn; you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problems.- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
* * *
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.
* * *
Live in the present. Do the things that need to be done. Do all the good you can each day. The future will unfold. -Peace Pilgrim
* * *
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. -RabindranathTagoreGitanjaliLXIX
* * *
To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. -John Burroughs
* * *
Instead of looking for love, give it; constantly renew it in yourself
and you will always feel its presence within you. It will always be
there smiling at you, gazing on you kindly.- Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov
* * *
The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as
you cry. - Maya Angelou
* * *
How can you not love the one who feeds you? – Vicki Robin
* * *
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible
to the eye.- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
* * *
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.- Galileo Galilei
* * *
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. -Audrey Hepburn
* * *
We do not receive wisdom; we discover it for ourselves by a voyage that no one can take for us, a voyage that no one can spare us.- Marcel Proust
* * *
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.- Archibald Rutledge
* * *
To imagine the thoughtlessness of a thoughtless thing is useless. The heart must sing of itself to keep awake. - Wendell Berry
* * *
Honor your own complexity.- Mark Gerzon Coming Into Our Own
* * *
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. -A.J. Muste
* * *
Not one single atom opposes us. -Zen Master Hongzhi
* * *
It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich. -Frank Herbert
Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken. - Frank Herbert
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. -Frank Herbert
Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us? -Frank Herbert
Understanding requires words. Some things cannot be reduced to words. There are things that can only be experienced wordlessly... The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are supreme. -Frank Herbert
To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers. -Frank Herbert
Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.
Stasis is the most dangerous of those things which are not natural. –Paul Atredies
The most dangerous of all creations is a rigid code of ethics. –Paul
Humiliation is a thing no person can forget. –Paul
Choose a good worm. –Fremen parting words
Abandon certainty! That’s life’s deepest command. That’s what life’s all about. –The Preacher
Tend to the wolf within your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist.
Knowing is a barrier that prevents learning. –Leto
To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure on the edge of uncertainty. –Leto
Every question, every problem doesn’t have a single correct answer. One must permit diversity. A monolith is unstable. –Leto
My mind controls my reality. –Farad’n
We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create.
To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. –Duncan Idaho’s Ghoula
There are many degrees of sight and many degrees of blindness. –Paul
Every man carries his own past with him. Hayt
If you need something to worship, then worship life – all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together. -Paul
* * *
I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when. -Philip Gulley, Porch Talk
* * *
To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven. -Johannes A. Gaertner
* * *
Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again. -Sarah Ban Breathnach
* * *
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. -Albert Einstein
* * *
Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize. -Elizabeth Harrison
* * *
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. -Donna Roberts
* * *
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words. -Joanna Macy
* * *
Get rich quick. Count your blessings.
* * *
How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all of its beauty? It felt the encouragement of Light against its being; otherwise we all remain too frightened.
-Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky- Love Poems from God
* * *
The acme of skill of the true warrior is to be victorious without fighting. –Sun Tsu
* * *
If the past is unredeemable, and the future unpredictable, what more practical course is open than to safeguard the present by constant remembrance of the divine? -Paul Brunton Notebooks
* * *
Beauty seen makes the one who sees it more beautiful. -David Steindl-Rast -A Listening Heart
* * *
The mystery of God touches us -- or does not -- in the smallest details: giving a strawberry, with love; receiving a touch, with love; sharing the snapdragon red of an autumn sunset, with love. -Marion Woodman -Coming Home to Myself
* * *
O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my
bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment. -Henry David Thoreau
* * *
Treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same. -Og Mandino -The Greatest Salesman in the World
* * *
All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
Indian Proverb
* * *
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing. -Phil Jackson
* * *
The burden which is well borne becomes light. - Ovid
* * *
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. - Rachel Carson
* * *
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.
Jalaluddin Rumi
* * *
Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.
-Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom
* * *
In a gentle way you can shake the world.- one of Cesar Chavez's favorite quotes from Gandhi
* * *
An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, sappy whistler in the dark. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
Howard Zinn
* * *
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
* * *
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
* * * 12-16-10
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead
* * *
In the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. - Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet
* * *
Loss and bereavement can remind you sharply of what can happen when in life you do not show your love and appreciation, or ask for forgiveness, and so make you far more sensitive to your loved ones.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said: ‘What I try to teach people is to live in such a way that you say those things while the other person can still hear it.”
* * *
When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. - Willie Nelson
* * *
One powerful way to evoke compassion is to think of others as exactly the same as you. “After all,” the Dalai Lama explains, “all human beings are the same—made of human flesh, bones, and blood. We all want happiness and want to avoid suffering. Further, we have an equal right to be happy. In other words, it is important to realize our sameness as human beings.”
* * *
When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.- John Muir
* * *
God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction. -Meister Eckhart
* * *
We hold the key to lasting happiness in our own hands. For it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.
Joy is that extraordinary happiness that is independent of what happens to us. -Brother David Steindl-Rast
* * *
When a door closes a stain glass window opens.....you just need to look to the light.
* * *
I used my fine command of language -and kept silent -Author unknown
* * *
Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. ~Iris Murdoch
* * *
Goodness is the only investment which never fails. - Henry David Thoreau
* * *
Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven. -Henry Ward Beecher
* * *
It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. -Helen Keller
* * *
When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time. -Rachel Naomi Remen
* * *
Only gratefulness, in the form of limitless openness for surprise, lays hold of the fullness of life in hope. - David Steindl-Rast, in Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer
* * *
BE SILENT Hear the voices of day and night.
BE STILL Know thyself.
BE AWARE Find the secret.
-Camp Akita sign
* * *
All this hurrying soon will be over. Only when we tarry do we touch the holy. -Rainer Maria Rilke, In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
* * *
The art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. -Havelock Ellis
The contemplative is one who would rather not know than know. -Thomas Merton
As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life. -Buddha
The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.
A mouse can eat an elephant, one bite at a time.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
One who would gather roses must not fear thorns. -Dutch proverb
One who angers you, controls you. -Buddhist aphorism
Let one who would move the world, first move himself. -Socrates
A good scare is worth more than good advice. -Horace
The whole world is God, but tell me, where are your eyes. -Rumi
Don't sweat the small stuff.
Drop by drop fills the pot. -Duala
Life is not waiting for the storm to pass. It is learning to dance in the rain.
If you can't say something nice, don't say nuthin at all. - Thumper's mother, in Bambi
Life is too important to be taken seriously. -Oscar Wilde
Nature is my church.
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Don't believe everything you think.
* * *
When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one. - Paul Brunton
* * *
The little things? The little moments? They aren't little. - Jon Kabat-Zinn
* * *
Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
* * *
Being generous creates an atmosphere that is more sacred. - Bro. David
* * *
My Prayer
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.
-John O'Donohue
* * *
Maimonides, often called by his acronym RaMBaM (Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon), was a 12th century Jewish scholar and physician. Rambam wrote a code of Jewish law, the Mishnah Torah, based on the Rabbinic oral tradition.
Rambam organized the different levels of tzedakah (charity) into a list from the least to the most honorable.
8. When donations are given grudgingly.
7. When one gives less than he should, but does so cheerfully.
6. When one gives directly to the poor upon being asked.
5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked.
4. When the recipient is aware of the donor's identity, but the donor does not know the identity of the recipient.
3. When the donor is aware of the recipient's identity, but the recipient is unaware of the source.
2. When the donor and recipient are unknown to each other.
1. The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.
* * *
If the eye of the heart is open, in each atom there will be one hundred secrets.
Attar of Nishapur (c.1142–c.1220), Persian Sufi poet
* * *
I like not to know for as long as possible because then it tells me the truth instead of me imposing the truth.
Michael Moschen
* * *
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a
listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all
of which have the potential to turn a life around. - Leo Buscaglia
* * *
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis de Sales
* * *
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
* * *
A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and
his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and
his heart is an artist. -Louis Nizer
* * *
Your life is always working, whether you know it or not. Sometimes it works to bring you what you want, and sometimes it works to keep you from what you think you want.
Neale Donald Walsch
* * *
By saying grace, we release the Divine sparks in our food. - Rabbi Herschel
* * *
A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth. -Albert Einstein
* * *
Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
* * *
Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art....It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world.
Joanna Macy
* * *
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. -Henry David Thoreau
* * *
To be a Pantheist is to have a reverence and life passion for the world and universe that naturally surrounds us, is ever changing and evolving, and to have a conviction for the preservation of and sustainability of that nature. A rock, a tree, a flower, a fox, a beetle, a human; we are all irrevocably intertwined and resultant from the same source. None are better or more important than another, all are equals, every aspect of nature has its place and purpose, we support and cherish each other's inherent beauty and being, and we sustain each other's life force or energy. To be a Pantheist is to realize that all there is, ever has been, and ever will be, is nature. - Jason Uh
Rushing is a way of diminishing the depth of something. . . that should matter to us: life before death. - Kirk Jones
I don't know how to pray, but I know how to pay attention... how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields. - Mary Oliver
* * *
You, your life, are worth a Sabbath pause…. These Sabbath, holy pauses that can be found in sunrises and sunsets; and in the striking red on black of a red-winged blackbird; and in the way that hummingbirds rejoice at the newly opened trumpet flowers, and the way those same trumpet vines find their way over, through, around, and under the fences meant to tame them, an elegant refusal of the proposed boundaries. All of these are worth the lingering. - Carmen Emerson
* * *
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. -Mark Twain
* * *
All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen.-Emerson
Think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course - Kahlil Gibran
The mind is the problem, the mind is the answer." - Osho
My life is my message. Expansion is my life." - Sai Baba
Beauty is an inner response of YES to the world. . . Beauty is power. Beauty bridges inner self and world. -Mary Grigolia
Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
May all beings be safe
May all beings feel joy
May all beings feel strong
May all beings live life with ease
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. -Martha Graham
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. -Alan Watts quotes (American Writer, Thinker and Interpreter of Zen Buddhism, 1915-1973)
I use dancing to embellish, extend or enlarge upon an existing emotion.- Gower Champion quotes (American Dancer and Choreographer noted for his successful Broadway musical comedies. 1921-1980)
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
Unless you're willing to have a go, fail miserably, and have another go, success won't happen. ~Phillip Adams
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. -Morrie Schwartz
* * *
We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
* * *
Music...gives wings to the mind, a soul to the universe, flight to the
imagination, a charm to sadness, a life to everything.- Plato (?)
* * *
We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. -Dorothy Day
* * *
Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.
A.A. Milne (via Eeyore)
* * *
If you have a strong mind and plant in it a firm resolve, you can change your destiny.
Paramahansa Yogananda
* * *
First thing in the morning, before you meet or greet anyone, remember to greet all of nature, all visible and invisible creatures. Say to them: "I am grateful for your work, I love you and want to be in harmony with you!" At this very moment, in response to your greeting, all of nature will open to you and send you energy for the entire day.
Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov
* * *
When the bridge is gone, the narrowest plank becomes precious.
Hungarian Proverb
* * *
You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
Robert Louis Stevenson
* * *
By benevolent powers wondrously sheltered, we, confident, await what may come. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
* * *
It must be borne in mind, however, that the tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is the sin.
-Rev. Dr. Benjamin E. Mays- Dr. King's mentor during his years of study at Morehouse College. from a sermon titled "What Man Lives By.”
* * *
People are like stained glass windows: They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
* * *
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.
~ Dr. Seuss
The Earth is a school that we are born into.
* * *
Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
Tom Stoppard
* * *
A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord.
Paramahansa Yogananda
* * *
We will know what both the fullness and the fulfilment of life mean only when the consciousness that the Spirit is our own very self comes to life within us. -Paul Brunton Perspectives
* * *
Eternal Spirit -- Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver; source of all that is and that shall be; Father and Mother of us all. Loving God, in whom is heaven. The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!
The New Zealand Prayer Book
* * *
We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.
THE DALAI LAMA
* * *
Being here while getting there...every step of the way.
* * *
Be contented with what you possess in life; be thankful for what does not belong to you, for it is so much care the less; but try to obtain what you need in life, and make the best of every moment of your life. - Hazrat Inayat Khan, Gayan
* * *
It is a sign of the greatest wisdom to resist provocation until ready. – Han Pritcher (Isaac Asimov)
* * *
We don’t know what life will bring, so it is what we bring to life that matters.
Patricia Campbell Carlson
* * *
Our approach to gratefulness has to be big enough to embrace all the difficulties of the world.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
* * *
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.
Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi
* * *
The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do. - Ingrid Bergman
* * *
Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particles. The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing into mass. Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality.
GARY ZUKAV
* * *
One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.
Leo Tolstoy
* * *
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full. - Thomas Merton
* * *
The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep.
Jalaluddin Rumi
* * *
Everything can be taken from a man but …the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. -Viktor Frankl
“logotherapy”, which considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts. -Viktor Frankl
:* * *
One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love. - Leo Tolstoy
* * *
Take more time, cover less ground. - Thomas Merton- Dancing In The Waters of Life
* * *
Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
* * *
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. -Louisa May Alcott
* * *
So much of modern life is a feverish anticipation of future activity and excitement. We have to learn to step back from this into the freedom and possibility of the present.
Fr. Bede Griffiths
* * *
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller
* * *
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the "atomic age" -- as in being able to remake ourselves.
Mahatma Gandhi
* * *
Grateful living: an alchemic operation of converting "disgraceful" things into grateful events.
Raimundo Panikkar
* * *
Wisdom comes from metabolizing what we learn from others and from experience to a point where it can be shared.
Mary Catherine Bateson
Spoken at Legacy of Wisdom conference, April 17, 2011
* * *
There's a self expansive aspect of gratitude. Very possibly it's a little known law of nature: the more gratitude you have, the more you have to be grateful for.
Elaine St. James
* * *
Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let your feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan- Call of the Dervish
* * *
Outwardly one's life may suffer every kind of limitation, from bodily paralysis to miserable surroundings, but inwardly it is free in meditation to reach out to a sphere of light, beauty, truth, love, and power.
Paul Brunton- Meditations for People in Crisis
* * *
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.
SUZUKI-ROSHI
* * *
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.
Shirley Chisholm
* * *
The world is evolving from imperfection to perfection. It needs all love and sympathy; great tenderness and watchfulness are required from each one of us.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
A Bowl of Saki
* * *
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
Willa Cather
* * *
Everyone searches desperately for happiness but the price that we must pay for it is generosity. -Jean Giono, in The Man Who Planted Trees: Generosity of Spirit as a Source of Happiness
* * *
I wake up in the morning asking myself what can I do today, how can I help the world today. -Julia Butterfly Hill
* * *
We have a spiritual practice of thinking of a fire hydrant as a saint - it's standing there waiting to be of service. It's a way to start reframing our relation to all the everyday things around us.
Frederic Brussat- 100 Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive
* * *
It is never too late to become what you might have been.
George Eliot
* * *
Kindness does wonderful things to a face.
Dixie Doyle
* * *
As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more the good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude. -Etty Hillesum
An Interrupted Life
* * *
If we are interdependent with everything and everyone, even our smallest, least significant thought, word, and action have real consequences throughout the universe.
Throw a pebble into a pond. It sends a shiver across the surface of the water. Ripples merge into one another and create new ones. Everything is inextricably interrelated: We come to realize that we are responsible for everything we do, say, or think, responsible in fact for ourselves, everyone and everything else, and the entire universe.
* * *
While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart. - St. Francis of Assisi
* * *
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go out and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.- Howard Thurman
* * *
Gratitude can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie
* * *
He who binds to himself to Joy,
Does the winged life destroy;
He who kisses the Joy as it flies,
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
WILLIAM BLAKE
* * *
So far as past errors are concerned, forget them and start afresh, as if it were your first day in this body; but so far as your present contacts are concerned, be kind to them, as if it were your last day in this body.
Paul Brunton
* * *
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Thomas Edison
* * *
So much has been given to me; I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.
Helen Keller
* * *
Those who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps.
St. Gregory the Great
from a letter to Augustine of Canterbury
* * *
The greatest attitude of all is gratitude.
* * *
Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person. - Rachel Naomi Remen
* * *
Looking behind I am filled with gratitude. Looking forward I am filled with vision. Looking upwards I am filled with strength. Looking within I discover peace. - Quero Apache Prayer
* * *
Just as a flower gives out its fragrance to whomsoever approaches or uses it, so love from within us radiates towards everybody and manifests as spontaneous service. - Swami Ramdas
* * *
Good generally conquers evil. Unless, of course, good is stupid.
* * *
I try to believe what I have to believe, not what I want to believe. - Matt Young, physicist
* * *
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star. - Frederick Nietzsche
* * *
Lâ ilâha illâ Allâh. (There is nothing other than the One.) - Qur'ân 37:35 and 47:19
* * *
I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become. ~ Carl Jung
* * *
Gratitude makes us feel bursting with delight, just to remember the gifts we have received. Thus we are doubly blessed when we receive something: for the gift itself and later, in recall, for the miracle of having been given it. -M.J. Ryan
* * *
You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each
other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of one who gives and kindles joy in the
heart of one who receives.
-- St. Seraphim of Sarov
* * *
The grateful heart sits at a continuous feast. - Proverbs 15:15
* * *
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
A.A. Milne ,Winnie-the-Pooh
* * *
When we begin to believe that there is greater joy in working with and for others, rather than just for ourselves, then our society will truly become a place of celebration. - Jean Vanier
* * *
Each of us can become a blessed channel of peace for the healing of Earth's wounds: We can awaken from apathy and find creative, non-violent ways to transform the abuses rampant in today's world. - Nan Merrill with Barbara Taylor,
Peace Planet: Light for Our World
* * *
Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want.
Geoffrey F. Abert
* * *
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. -Charles Dubois
* * *
Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb.
Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B
A Tree Full of Angels
* * *
Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. – Ovid
* * *
Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. –Anonymous
* * *
True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire. -Cesar Chavez, Eulogy for Rufino Contreras, Calexico, CA, Feb. 14, 1979
* * *
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. -Elie Wiesel
* * *
Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of creativity. -Michael J. Gelb
* * *
Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent-free in your head.
* * *
A few fly bites cannot stop a spirited horse. -Mark Twain
* * *
The moment you can visualize being free from the things that hold you back, you have indeed begun to set yourself free. -Unknown
* * *
Grief and gratitude are kindred souls, each pointing to the beauty of what is transient and given to us by grace.- Patricia Campbell Carlson (Letter to a friend)
* * *
For many years, at great cost, I traveled through many countries, saw the high mountains, the oceans. The only things I did not see were the sparkling dewdrops in the grass just outside my door. -Rabindranath Tagore
* * *
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what to hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
Barbara Kingsolver
* * *
Perpetual gratitude toward people around us initiates habits of thankful prayer. It also starts a chain reaction of giving thanks, till our friends and loved ones and our whole world become imbued in grateful living. -Edward Hays, The Great Escape Manual
* * *
At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable.
-Christopher Reeve
* * *
A thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining soul complains even in paradise. -Baha'u'llah
* * *
We should notice that we are already supported at every moment. There is the earth below our feet and there is the air, filling our lungs and emptying them. We should begin from this when we need support.
Natalie Goldberg
Writing Down the Bones
* * *
Do more than belong, participate. Do more than care, help. Do more than believe, practice. Do more than be fair, be kind. Do more than forgive, forget. Do more than dream, work. - William Arthur Ward
* * *
Happiness is not what makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy. -David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart
* * *
Trouble creates a capacity to handle it....meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
* * *
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. -Margaret Mead
* * *
The whole universe is breathing as our breath; we limit the process by our assumption that we are doing the breathing.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Alchemical Wisdom
* * *
a living individual is a persistent pattern rather than a particular collection of particles.
Every instant of your life exists always. Time does not pass.
in order for you to fly it would just be necessary that all the atoms in your body be coincidentally moving upwards at the same time in the course of their random fluctuations. Unlikely, but not impossible! - Rudolf v. B. Rucker
The pessimist and the optimist live in different worlds. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
the world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. If we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so, the world will stop being so-and-so. -Carlos Castaneda
* * *
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions (the "passions") so that universal principles, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one's actions. Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true or right coupled with optimum judgment as to action. -Wikipedia
* * *
Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, defined wisdom as the understanding of causes, i.e. knowing why things are a certain way, which is deeper than merely knowing that things are a certain way.
* * *
wisdom is the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others. -Nicholas Maxwell
* * *
a person became wise when they can see what's needed to be done and do it successfully without being told what to do. -an Inuit elder
* * *
wisdom is the coordination of knowledge and experience and its deliberate use to improve well being.
* * *
Buddhist scriptures teach that a wise person is endowed with good bodily conduct, good verbal conduct, and good mental conduct. A wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results, and doesn’t do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results. Wisdom is the antidote to the self-chosen poison of ignorance.
* * *
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. -Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
* * *
Wisdom is the ability to navigate the gray zones of life well, so that the holistic health and wellness of oneself, others, and complex systems is maximized. -EDM
* * *
* * *
The public likes to plant corn in October because it’s grown so well since April.
* * *
The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task, so naturally we sit down for a while. - Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi
* * *
A lack of a daily tonic of gratitude results in an anemic soul, which, in turn, contributes to a physical sense of listlessness. A grateful soul, on the other hand, is vibrant and animated and so permeates your body with zest and with an enjoyment of a life littered with gifts.
Edward Hays
Prayer Notes to a Friend, Forest of Peace
* * *
As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it.
David Steindl-Rast
Friends of Silence newsletter, December 2008
* * *
People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.
David Steindl-Rast
* * *
The source of a true smile is an awakened mind. Smiling helps you approach the day with gentleness and understanding.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Peace Is Every Step
* * *
You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can decide how you're going to live now.
Joan Baez
* * *
Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. -Ludwig von Mises in Human Action
* * *
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.– Margaret Mead
:* * *
Be content to progress in slow steps until you have legs to run and wings with which to fly.
Padre Pio- Quiet Moments with Padre Pio (Patricia Treece ed.)
* * *
12/5/1012
* * *
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs -- jolted by every pebble in the road. - Henry Ward Beecher
* * *
Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. - Helen Keller
* * *
He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire. -Lao Tzu
* * *
Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken. - Albert Camus
* * *
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. -William Arthur Ward
* * *
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
* * *
Today is the oldest you have ever been, and the youngest you will ever be. Enjoy the day.
* * *
We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.
Simone Weil
* * *
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams
* * *
You can't start the new chapter in your life if you keep re-reading the last one.
* * *
Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, praising God until we ourselves are a constant act of praise.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
Radical Grace: Daily Meditations
* * *
Travel ennobles the spirit and does away with our prejudices.
Oscar Wilde
* * *
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
* * *
Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.
* * *
When the pearl is cast down in the mud it does not become dishonoured the more, nor if it is anointed with balsam oil will it become more precious. But it has its worth in the eyes of its owner at all times. -Philip the Gnostic, translated by R. Wilson, The Gospel of Philip
* * *
The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
* * *
When you let go of trying to get more of what you don't really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have it expands. -Lynne Twist
* * *
Life's most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others? -Dr. ML King
* * *
Whoever does not see God in every place does not see God in any place. -Rabbi Elimelech
* * *
If we perceived Life with reverence, we would stand in awe at the experience of physical Life and walk the Earth in a very deep sense of gratitude. -Gary Zukav- Thoughts from the Seat of the Soul
* * *
Those who are awake live in a constant state of amazement.
Jack Kornfield
* * *
The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door. -Thomas Merton- Contemplation in a World of Action
* * *
Laughing is the shortest distance between two people. -Victor Borge
* * *
People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. - Ralph W. Emerson
* * *
The important thing is not to think much, but to love much; and so, do that which best stirs you to love. -Saint Teresa of Avila
* * *
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
– Saul Bellow, writer, Nobel laureate (1915-2005)
* * *
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced - even a proverb is not a proverb till your life has illustrated it. -John Keats
* * *
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning
* * *
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Key
* * *
Human relationships are primary in all of living. When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the wind, but we won't break. -Fred Rogers
* * *
Gratitude places you in the energy field of plentitude. Perceiving life in a consciousness of gratitude is literally stepping into another dimension of living. Suddenly the seeming ordinariness of your days takes on a divine sparkle. -Michael Beckwith
* * *
It's not who you are that holds you back, it who you think you're not.
* * *
May I see my own limits with compassion, just as I view the limits of others. -Roshi Joan Halifax, Spoken at Legacy of Wisdom conference, April 17, 2011
* * *
“What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.
* * *
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
* * *
Relationships are the oxygen of the psyche. -Jane Fonda
* * *
Acceptance is the universal currency of real friendship. . . .It does not warp or shape or wrench a person to be anything other than what they are. -Joan Chittister, The Friendship of Women
* * *
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. -Melody Beattie
* * *
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. -Clarissa Pinkola Estes
* * *
For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
* * *
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,/Every cubic inch of space is a miracle. -Walt Whitman, "Miracles"
* * *
If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. -Buddhist Proverb
* * *
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. -Cesar Chavez, Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984
* * *
Teach this triple truth to all:, A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity. –Buddha
* * *
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress. -Mahatma Gandhi
* * *
One needn’t go where one’s ticket says. - D.H. Lawrence, in Women in Love
* * *
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature. -Joseph Campbell
* * *
A sacred illness is one that educates us and alters us from the inside out, provides experiences and therefore knowledge that we could not possibly achieve in any other way. -Deena Metzger
* * *
A life of gratitude accepts the bad with the good. Genuine gratitude is not a zero sum game in which thankfulness increases the more fortunate you are and decreases the more adversity you experience.
-Dan Clendenin
* * *
The tree that bends survives the storm. - Chinese saying
* * *
Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. -Nido Qubein
* * *
Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you. -Maori proverb
* * *
Every man has his own patch of earth to cultivate. What’s important is that he dig deep" —José Saramago
* * *
Within Siddhartha there slowly grew and ripened the knowledge of what wisdom really was and the goal of his long seeking. It was nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life. — Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha."
* * *
Daring to dream what is deepest in our collective longings is what makes us most human and fully alive. -Wendy Wright, The Vigil
* * *
In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. -William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life
* * *
There is no large and difficult task that can’t be divided into little easy tasks. -Buddhist Saying
* * *
Though you may not be able to change it, you can handle an ugly situation beautifully. -Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom
* * *
Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused. -African saying
* * *
Help your neighbor's boat across, and lo! your own has reached the shore. -Hindu proverb
* * *
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road. -Henry Ward Beecher
* * *
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. -Thomas Merton
* * *
Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.
– Seneca
* * *
The master of the garden is the one who waters it, trims the branches, plants the seeds, and pulls the weeds. If you merely stroll through the garden, you are but an acolyte. – Vera Nazarian
* * *
Penetrate the heart of just one drop of water, and you will be flooded by a hundred oceans. -Mahmûd Shabistarî- The Mystic Rose Garden
* * *
Beware of false gods - and of speed bumps disguised as mountains. – Unknown
* * *
We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if for only a moment. -May Sarton
* * *
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
* * *
Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
– Og Mandino
* * *
He who loves with purity considers not the gift of the lover, but the love of the giver.
– Thomas Kempis
* * *
The most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
* * *
Each of our relationships has a trajectory that death doesn't destroy. We see its arc in the inner changes we undergo when we remember deceased loved ones, and even in outward changes as we continue to mold our lives in response to theirs. -Patricia Campbell Carlson
* * *
Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them. -Anne-Sophie Swetchine, The Writings of Madame Swetchine
* * *
When we persevere with the help of a gentle discipline, we slowly come to hear the still, small voice and to feel the delicate breeze, and so to come to know the presence of Love. -Henri Nouwen
* * *
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure." – H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
* * *
All the children who are held and loved...will know how to love others. Spread these virtues in the world. Nothing more need be done. -Meng Zi, c. 300 BCE
* * *
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -Anne Bradstreet
* * *
Sticks in a bundle cannot be broken. -Bondei Proverb
* * *
When one leaves for the stars, that person will be the one to blink at you in the night-sky and show you the way. While s/he will no longer be able to touch your hands s/he will forever be able to touch your heart. -Karla A. Claeys, M.A
* * *
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but only words can give me wounds that continue to fester and hurt my mental, emotional, spiritual and social health. –EDM
* * *
When the waves close over me, I dive down to fish for pearls. -Masha Kaleko
* * *
When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. -Alan Watts
* * *
Your success and happiness lie in you....Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.-Helen Keller
* * *
Recipients of our appreciation are apt to express their own gratitude to others, lengthening the unending, golden chain of connections-in-goodness that stretches across the world. -Mary Ford Grabowsky
The Way of Mary
* * *
I am, therefore I thank. -Cindy Lubar Bishop
* * *
In today's rush we all think too much - seek too much - want too much - and forget about the joy of just being. – Eckhart Tolle
* * *
Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. -Meister Eckhart
* * *
Gratitude is the sweet fragrance of an opening heart. -Aine Belton
* * *
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind. – Robert Green Ingersoll
* * *
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave. -Dakota proverb
* * *
So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. - Shawnee Chief Tecumseh
* * *
Nurture your ties to your tribe. If you don’t have one, create a community that you can belong to. Modern life
can be isolating. When you have a tribe, you have a circle that you are a part of. Its members – loved ones,
friends, or neighbors - can be a source of support, caring, guidance, and companionship. -Daily Om
* * *
It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives. -Thomas Merton, Love and Living
* * *
Even if you have a lot of work to do, if you think of it as wonderful, and if you feel it as wonderful, it will transform into the energy of joy and fire, instead of becoming a burden. -Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, The Practice of Dzogchen
* * *
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
* * *
It may be that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. -Wendell Berry, Collected Poems
* * *
Reality is permeated, indeed flooded, with divine creativity, nourishment, and care. -Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness, and Politics
* * *
Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind. ~Henry James
* * *
If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness.
If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness.
If you let go completely, you will be completely happy.
* * *
If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean, is the moment the wave realizes it is water.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar
- Thich Nhat Hanh
It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more. - Thich Nhat Hanh
People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now - Thich Nhat Hanh
When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Each day 40,000 children die of hunger. The superpowers now have more then 50,000 nuclear warheads, enough to destroy our planet many times. Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects. Please do not think we must be solemn in order to meditate. In fact, to meditate well, we have to smile a lot. - Thich Nhat Hanh
If you are motivated by loving kindness and compassion, there are many ways to bring happiness to others right now, starting with kind speech. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
* * *
You are me, and I am you. Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”? You cultivate the flower within yourself, so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage within myself, so that you will not have to suffer. I support you, you support me. I am in this world to offer you peace, you are in this world to bring me joy. - Thich Nhat Hanh
* * *
No problem can be solved from the same consciousness
that created it. —Albert Einstein
And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small. -Mother Teresa
Soul . . . the river of energy that animates who we are. It is the wise and whole and brave part of the self. The soul is the ageless longing for truth that sends scientists into the lab and seekers onto the spiritual path. - Elizabeth Lesser
It doesn't have to be so intense, so fierce, so acrimoniuous. You can work to ease the ills of society, and at the same time you can love the world with all of its sorrow and beauty. - Elizabeth Lesser
My daily mantra is, "Surrender and relax into the mystery." - Elizabeth Lesser
Too much giving to children is not a gift. Rather, it's a taking away. It denies children the skills they will need for life outside the bubble. - Elizabeth Lesser
It is often easier to remain stuck in old behaviors and mind-sets even when they no longer serve us, even when they make us miserable. ... We get attached to the way things are, no matter how ridiculous or destructive they've become. ... We're trapped by our own version of reality. - Elizabeth Lesser
The point of life is not to reach perfection but to befriend the fact that human beings are works in progress. - Elizabeth Lesser
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
You always teach others what you most need to learn. You are your own worst student. -sign over faculty lounge at Esalen
I don't think being human has any place for guilt. Contrition, yes. Guilt, no. Contrition means you tell God you are sorry and you're not going to do it again and you start off fresh. . . . It's over. You are willing to forgo the pleasures of guilt. -Sr Wendy Beckett
Waking up in the morning I smile,
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose. -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
(Prayer) is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. -Vaclav Havel
In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself within a dark woods
Where the straight way was lost.
-Dante Alighieri
We're all bozos on the bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. -Wavy Gravy
We are built to make mistakes, coded for error. -Lewis Thomas
The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. -Victor Frankl
Nothing is born, nothing can die. -Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
When we practice dying, we are learning to identify less with Ego and more with Soul. -Ram Dass
The secret in life is enjoying the passage of time. -Richie Havens
It is not ideas that change the world but simple gestures of love given to the people around you, and often to those you feel most at odds with. . . . In order to save the world you must serve the people in your life. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea, and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything. -Thomas Merten
Unceasing change turns the wheel of life,
and so reality is shown in all its many forms.
Dwell peacefully as change itself
liberates all suffering sentient beings
and brings them great joy.
-from a Buddhist sutra
* * *
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. -Napoleon
* * *
Whatever our individual troubles and challenges may be, it's important to pause every now and then to appreciate all that we have, on every level. -Shakti Gawain
* * *
In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
* * *
Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation. -Barbara Kingsolver , High Tide in Tucson
* * *
The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see. -Dr. Robert Holden
* * *
And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. -Meister Eckhart
* * *
Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it. -Rabindranath Tagore
* * *
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. -Maya Angelou
* * *
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. -James Joyce
* * *
Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us. – voltaire
* * *
No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helps you. -Althea Gibson
* * *
Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it is about learning to dance in the rain. ~ Author Unknown
* * *
The grateful heart is a manifestation of one's true self. Nothing sidelines the ego more effectively than a grateful heart. -Albert Nolan
* * *
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. -Lao Tzu
* * *
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. – Buddha
* * *
The emergence and blossoming of understanding, love, and intelligence has nothing to do with any tradition, no matter how ancient or impressive--it has nothing to do with time. It happens on its own when a human being questions, wonders, inquires, listens, and looks without getting stuck in fear, pleasure, and pain. When self-concern is quiet, in abeyance, heaven and earth are open. – Toni Packer
* * *
Those two principles: We're supposed to love one another and we're supposed to work together to make the experience better. That's all the religion you need, really, to make a success of this planet... – Mario Cuomo
* * *
Changing the world begins with the very personal process of changing yourself,
the only place you can begin is where you are, and the only time you can begin is always now. – Gary Zukav
* * *
Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever. – Unknown
* * *
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. -Samuel Ullman
* * *
Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others. -Barbara Bush
* * *
The main benefit of optimism is resilience in the face of setbacks. - Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman
* * *
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. -Robert Louis Stevenson
* * *
Beauty seen makes the one who sees it more beautiful. -David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart
* * *
When we come upon beautiful things . . . they act like small tears in the surface of the world that pull us through to some vaster space.
Elaine Scarry
On Beauty and Being Just
* * *
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent. -Jalaluddin Rumi
* * *
The tongue like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood. -Chinese proverb
* * *
People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most. ~Wayne Dyer
* * *
Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others. ~Wayne W. Dyer
* * *
First thing in the morning, before you meet or greet anyone, remember to greet all of nature, all visible and invisible creatures. Say to them: "I am grateful for your work, I love you and want to be in harmony with you!" At this very moment, in response to your greeting, all of nature will open to you and send you energy for the entire day. -Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov
* * *
The little things? The little moments? They aren't little. -Jon Kabat-Zinn
* * *
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have. — Socrates
* * *
A thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining soul complains even in paradise. -Baha'u'llah
* * *
Every act of love is a work of peace no matter how small. -Mother Teresa
* * *
If God sends you down a stony path, may God give you strong shoes. -Irish Blessing
* * *
Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it. -Bill Cosby
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. ~Herman Melville
In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first. -Jimi Hendrix
The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you. -Brian Tracy
There is only one way to happiness and that is to stop worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. - Epictetus
* * *
To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. -William Blake
* * *
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here. -Tolstoy, War and Peace
* * *
I am, therefore I thank. -Cindy Lubar Bishop
* * *
Every morning is like a new reincarnation into this world. Let us take it then for what it is and live each moment anew. -Paul Brunton
* * *
Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants. -Esther de Waal
* * *
Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition. -Florida Scott-Maxwell
* * *
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light. -Dr. Albert Schweitzer
* * *
Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. Why? Because it is all we ever have. -Pema Chödrön
* * *
We can only control and choose 1) The thoughts we focus on; 2) The emotions we choose to dance in (compassion, anger, resentment, fear, guilt, shame, sense of abandonment, love, etc); and 3) Our actions. You can not choose anything for your loved one- just as he or she can not choose for you. - Tracy Latz, M.D., M.S., Mh.D.
* * *
Worrying is using your imagination to create what you don’t want” – Abraham Hicks
* * *
Give yourself entirely to those around you. Be generous with your blessings. A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal. ~Steve Maraboli
* * *
The journey in between what you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life takes place.
-Barbara De Angelis
* * *
The next message you need is always right where you are. -Ram Dass
* * *
I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when. -Philip Gulley, Porch Talk
*
* * *
Indecision is often worse than wrong action. – Henry Ford
* * *
Sometimes, in order to be happy in the present moment, you have to be willing to give up hope for a better past. – Robert Holden
* * *
You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
– Eric Hoffer
* * *
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
A.J. Muste
* * *
By saying grace, we release the Divine sparks in our food. -Rabbi Herschel
* * *
A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song. -Joan Walsh Anglund
* * *
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor Frankl
* * *
Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react. – John Maxwell
* * *
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. - Alan Watts
A wave looking deeply into herself will see that she is made up of all the other waves and will no longer feel she is cut off from everything around her. She will be able to recognize that the other waves are also her home. When you practice walking meditation, walk in such a way that you recognize your home, in the here and the now. See the trees as your home, the air as your home, the blue sky a
s your home, and the earth that you tread as your home. This can only be done in the here and the now.
Sometimes we have a feeling of alienation. We feel lonely and as if we are cut off from everything. We have been a wanderer and have tried hard but have never been able to reach our true home. However, we all have a home, and this is our practice, the practice of going home. - Thich Nhat Hanh, 'Going Home'
Be content with what you have;
Rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing
lacking,
The whole world belongs to you.
- Lao Tzu
When you practice breathing, smiling, and looking at beautiful things around you, you are planting seeds of beauty and happiness. - Thich Nhat Hanh
May I live this day compassionate of heart, clear in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought, generous in love. - John O'Donohue
Even after all this time
The Sun never says to the Earth, you owe me.
Look what happens with a love like that,
It lights the whole sky. - Hafiz
Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower grow. There cannot be a lotus flower without the mud. - Thich Nhat Hanh
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. -Margaret Mead
* * *
To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly. -Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
* * *
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. -Joseph Addison
* * *
The elixer is hidden in the poison. –Rumi
* * *
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. -Carl Jung
* * *
The grateful heart sits at a continuous feast.
Proverbs 15:15
* * *
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
* * *
Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.
* * *
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass where ever you may be. -Robert Fulghum
* * *
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass where ever you may be. -Robert Fulghum
* * *
If you pour some music on whatever's wrong, it'll sure help out. - Levon Helm (1940-2012)
* * *
The thing about quotes on the Internet is that you cannot confirm their validity. — Abraham Lincoln
* * *
The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination. -John Schaar
* * *
To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. -Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart
* * *
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. -Noam Chomsky
* * *
Dream as if you will live forever; Live as if you will die tomorrow.
– Unknown
* * *
When you let go of trying to get more of what you don't really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have it expands.
-Lynne Twist
* * *
The whole universe is breathing as our breath; we limit the process by our assumption that we are doing the breathing.
-Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom
* * *
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,/Every cubic inch of space is a miracle. -Walt Whitman, "Miracles"
* * *
Suffering is the sandpaper of our life. It does its work of shaping us. Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise. -Ram Dass
* * *
Heaven and earth are threads from one loom. -Shaker proverb
* * *
The burden which is well borne becomes light. –Ovid
* * *
All knowledge is partial, infinitesimally partial. Reason is a net thrown out into an ocean. What truth it brings in is a fragment, a glimpse, a scintillation of the whole truth. – Ursula K. LeGuin
* * *
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced - even a proverb is not a proverb till your life has illustrated it. -John Keats
* * *
One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
* * *
If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
– Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)
* * *
Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow.
– Vera Nazarian
* * *
A mind that is stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
* * *
It's easier to act one's way into a new way of thinking than it is to think one's way into a new way of acting. -anon
Most of us do not retain a lot of what we see or hear. In contrast, we do retain what we practice. - John Diffey, CEO, The Kendal Corp
* * *
Help your neighbor's boat across,
and lo! your own has reached the shore. -Hindu proverb
* * *
Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it. – Andy Rooney
* * *
The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective.
-Blessed Mother Teresa
* * *
Presume not that I am the thing I was. – William Shakespeare
* * *
There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy. – Ralph Blum
* * *
I look upon a year lived as a year earned; and each year earned means a greater treasury of experience and power laid up against time of need. -Anna Botsford Comstock
* * *
You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of one who gives and kindles joy in the heart of one who receives. -St. Seraphim of Sarov
* * *
Better keep yourself clean and bright;
you are the window through which you must see the world. – George Bernard Shaw
* * *
I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.
-Martha Washington
* * *
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. -- Desmond Tutu
To train a dog, you have to be more interesting than grass. And grass can be pretty interesting. -- Author Unknown
* * *
When a sprout breaks its casing and forces its way to the surface of the earth, it is the climax to a long and deep accumulation of life force, the product of unseen and subtle cycles.
A seedling carries with it the complete pattern for its growth, perhaps the makings of an enormous tree. Although time and the right conditions are necessary, neither of those factors adds anything to the inherent nature of the seedling. It completely embodies its destiny.
- Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao: Daily Meditations
* * *
Inside the seed is the unfulfilled potential of the plant
Perhaps the potential to be a great tree.
Inside us, inside our inner world, in our thought patterns
Lies our potential to manifest our gift.
To live a meaningful life. -Heron Dance
* * *
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. – Thich Nhat Hanh
* * *
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. -Rachel Carson
* * *
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. -The Dalai Lama XIV
* * *
May your heart be an altar, from which the bright flame of unending thanksgiving ascends to heaven. -St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, Embrace the World
* * *
Life is a very narrow bridge between two eternities. Be not afraid.
-Rabbi Nachman of Braslav
* * *
Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. -A.A. Milne (via Eeyore)
* * *
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.
-Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
* * *
Reality is permeated, indeed flooded, with divine creativity, nourishment, and care. -Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness, and Politics
* * *
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. -Cesar Chavez
Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984
* * *
Relationships are the oxygen of the psyche. -Jane Fonda
* * *
The source of a true smile is an awakened mind. Smiling helps you approach the day with gentleness and understanding. -Thich Nhat Hanh
* * *
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. -Cesar Chavez
* * *
Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want. -Geoffrey F. Abert
* * *
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. -Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
* * *
Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art . . . It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world. -Joanna Macy
* * *
It's impossible to give love and be depressed. -Carlos Santana
* * *
For me, losing a tennis match isn't failure, it's research. -Billie Jean King
* * *
Each of us can become a blessed channel of peace for the healing of Earth's wounds: We can awaken from apathy and find creative, non-violent ways to transform the abuses rampant in today's world.
-Nan Merrill with Barbara Taylor, Peace Planet: Light for Our World
* * *
Source of all blessings, you bless us with the blessing of birdsong – the ecstasy of a lark, still singing, all lost in the sky; the music of a water-thrush when the sun comes out after a thunderstorm; the bell of a cuckoo that keeps ringing on an island when the hawthorn blooms. May i remember my calling: to sing in my heart with all the songbirds of the world, for sheer gratitude and to give joy to others by my silent song. -Br. David Steindl-Rast
* * *
People are like stained glass windows: They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
* * *
Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation. -Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson
* * *
Willingness to personal
Transformation
Is the key to global
illumination !!! - Carlos Santana
* * *
We don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. -Howard Zinn
* * *
Be content to progress in slow steps until you have legs to run and wings with which to fly. -Padre Pio
* * *
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing. -Phil Jackson
* * *
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. -David Lloyd George
* * *
Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let your feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth. -Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Call of the Dervish
* * *
The future has many names. For the weak it is unattainable. For the fearful it is the unknown. For the bold it is opportunity. -Victor Hugo
* * *
Growing older is like climbing a mountain: the higher you get, the more strength you need, but the further you see. -Ingmar Bergman
* * *
The future has many names. For the weak it is unattainable. For the fearful it is the unknown. For the bold it is opportunity. -Victor Hugo
* * *
Do not believe what you have heard
Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations
Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times
Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage
Do not believe in conjecture
Do not believe in authority, or teachers, or elders
But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason
and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.
– Buddha
* * *
Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art....It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world. -Joanna Macy
* * *
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead
* * *
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. – Pablo Picasso
* * *
Source of all blessing, you bless us with the blessing of change – changing seasons of the year from snow to greening, flowering, fruiting, and harvest; seasons of life from childhood to youth, full ripeness, and saging. All living things keep changing. May i welcome change as a blessed opportunity to grow and savor—in each unrepeatable moment’s fleetingness – what IS beyond change. -Brother David Steindl-Rast
* * *
Never cut what you can untie. – Joseph Joubert
* * *
Carpe diem . . . seize the day . . . enjoy the day . . . pluck the day [when it is ripe] . . . enjoy the now
* * *
I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. -Roger Ebert
* * *
We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it. ~John Lennon
* * *
When I am silent,
I fall into that place
where everything is music.
-Rumi
* * *
You must weed your mind as you would weed your garden." ~Terri Guillemets
* * *
there is something wrong with any spirituality that does not inspire selfless concern for others. – Karen Armstrong
* * *
Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks.
– Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)
* * *
The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
– Clint Eastwood
* * *
A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. – Amelia Earhart
* * *
Peace can exist only in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say “wait until I finish this, then I will be free to live in peace.” What is “this”? A diploma, a job, a house, the payment of debt? If you think that way, peace will never come. There is always another “this” that will follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you will never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise, there is only “the hope of peace some day. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
* * *
Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think. – Neil deGrasse Tyson
* * *
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw
* * *
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every ending is a beginning. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
* * *
If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.—Henry Miller
* * *
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree and are too cowardly to let you know. – Napoleon Bonaparte
* * *
With great power comes great responsibility. – Stan Lee
* * *
Every moment is another chance; every chance is a new beginning. – Unknown
* * *
I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter....I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. – Roger Ebert
* * *
He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears. – Michel de Montaigne
* * *
Lasting change is not a dream; it can be achieved employing strategies that can be learned and are repeatable. Once you break the habit of being yourself and truly change your mind, your life will never be the same! - Dr. Joe Dispenza, M.D.
* * *
Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
– William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)
* * *
The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. – Vince Lombardi
* * *
In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me. – John Fowles
* * *
It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives. – Thomas Merton
* * *
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature. – Joseph Campbell
* * *
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others. – Archibald Rutledge
* * *
Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place. – Kurt Vonnegut
* * *
The earth community, the Life Community, is not the property of any one religion or group or part of the world; it is the Commons that embraces us all, our planetary home. And it needs us as never before. It calls to us to become, not heroes but community builders, builders of home, gatherers and embracers, bearers of hospitality, keepers of the shared space that nurtures us all. It calls us not to go forth and come back laden with honors but to honor where we are, who we are, and from that place to reach out to connect to and honor each other in the community of life.
– David Spangler
* * *
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts
* * *
A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it -- that alone can be like waking up from a dream.
– David Steindl-Rast
* * *
Whoever does not see God in every place does not see God in any place. – Rabbi Elimelech
* * *
Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door. Such pauses take a brief moment, yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you. – David Steindl-Rast
* * *
The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. What is grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion. ~Lao Tzu
* * *
Happiness: “You Bring Your Own Weather To The Picnic.”- Gretchen Rubin
“Happiness is by choice…not by chance.”-Unknown
“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”
-Frederick Keonig
* * *
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. -Mark Twain
* * *
The best care for the body is a quiet mind. -Napoleon Bonaparte
* * *
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. -Ludwig Wittgenstein
* * *
One of the keys to successful aging is to do what you love for as long as you can. -Peter Whitehouse
* * *
Aging is not a game we ever "win"; it is a game we try to stay competitive in. -Peter Whitehouse
* * *
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. – Malcolm X
* * *
A vision demands certainty in the telling, openness and flexibility in the unfolding.
– Kathryn Elliott
* * *
The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer
* * *
A hungry man is not a free man. – Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)
* * *
Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice. – Washington Irving, writer (1783-1859)
* * *
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The spirit is never at rest but always engaged in ever progressive motion, in giving itself new form. –Hegel
* * *
Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you. – Jim Rohn
* * *
by Dr. Tony Alessandra- We have all heard of the Golden Rule-and many people aspire to live by it. The Golden Rule is not a panacea. Think about it: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule implies the basic assumption that other people would like to be treated the way that you would like to be treated.
The alternative to the Golden Rule is the Platinum Rule:
"Treat others the way they want to be treated." Ah hah! What a difference. The Platinum Rule accommodates the feelings of others. The focus of relationships shifts from "this is what I want, so I'll give everyone the same thing" to "let me first understand what they want and then I'll give it to them."
* * *
Every moment instructs, and every object; for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence until after a long time. - Ralph W. Emerson
* * *
We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest."
-Orison Swett Marde
* * *
If you want trust, trust others. If you want respect, respect others. If you want help, help others. If you want love and peace in your life, give them away. If you want great friends, be one. That's how it works.
– Dan Zadra
* * *
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
– Harper Lee, writer (b. 1926)
* * *
Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety.
– Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
* * *
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace. Awakening appears when you stop wanting anything. - Ajahn Sumedho
* * *
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. - Albert Einstein
When we pay attention, whatever we are doing...is transformed and becomes a part of our spiritual path. We begin to notice details and textures that we never noticed before; everyday life becomes clearer, sharper, and at the same time more spacious.- Rick Fields
Real enlightenment is not an experience. Real enlightenment is the ongoing work you do to keep from getting caught up in your experiences.- Brad Warner
Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.- Chuang Tzu
It's not possible to have a problem without believing a prior thought. To notice this simple truth is the beginning of peace.-Byron Katie
By letting go of even the thought ‘I,’ what is left? There is nowhere to stand and no one to stand there. No separation anywhere. Pure awareness. Neither this, nor that. Just clarity and being.- Ram Dass
You are me, and I am you. Isn't it obvious that we “inter-are”? You cultivate the flower within yourself, so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage within myself, so that you will not have to suffer. I support you, you support me. I am in this world to offer you peace, you are in this world to bring me joy.- Thich Nhat Hanh
As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.- Ram Dass
You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to unhook awareness from other things, that are contents of awareness. If one gives up being hooked, then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the [real] Self.- Ramana Maharshi
Thoughts are impediments to seeing your deepest nature. Don't give rise to any thought, and discover who you are. That ocean of eternal peace is you. What is the difficulty that we suffer from? It is that we seek peace elsewhere and do not experience that we are peace incarnate itself.- PapaJi
To realize the inexpressible truth, do not manipulate mind or body but simply open into transparency with relaxed, natural grace.- Tilopa
As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.- Adyashanti
To bow to the fact of our life's sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.- Jack Kornfield
Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.- Sharon Salzberg
When you drop all your ideas, fantasies and projections about who you are and what freedom is and remain completely empty, this is freedom.- Mooji
Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.- Eckhart Tolle
If we can allow some space within our awareness and rest there, we can respect our troubling thoughts and emotions, allow them to come, and let them go. Our lives may be complicated on the outside, but we remain simple, easy, and open on the inside.- Tsoknyi Rinpoche
That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.- Osho
It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.- Jiddu Krishnamurti
We should cast aside all childish games that fetter and exhaust body, speech and mind; and stretching out in inconceivable nonaction, in the unstructured matrix, the actuality of emptiness, where the natural perfection of reality lies, we should gaze at the uncontrived sameness of every experience, all conditioning and ambition resolved with finality.- Longchenpa
Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.- Alan Watts
Since all virtuous thoughts and actions motivated by clinging to a concrete reality or to a self-cherishing attitude are like poisonous food, give them up. Learn not to cling, but to know the phantom-like nature of experience.- Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye
Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit—-to the “conquest” of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature.- Alan Watts
Give yourself completely to the act of listening. Beyond the sounds there is something greater, a sacredness that cannot be understood through thought.- Eckhart Tolle
For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.- Thich Nhat Hanh
We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing?”- Swami Satchidananda
The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself.- Deepak Chopra
Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem.- Eckhart Tolle
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.- Paramahansa Yogananda
It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actually realize this truth, we will have no suffering.- Shunryu Suzuki
Contentment is a wealth that gives the highest satisfaction, and we can gain it simply by mining our own mental resources, and knowing our own mind. We can cultivate the perspective that what we have is enough. We can see that we do not actually need more than we already have, and can be completely satisfied with that.- 17th Karmapa
Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.- Pema Chödron
If you see and love the essence in others, it is because you have found the essence of your own Self. This is the purest form of compassion. It is not from one to another but from the Self to the Self. It is all one unity, you see?- Mooji
Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.
Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home -- at ease.- Lama Surya Das
As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weakens and defeats you. - Morihei Ueshiba
Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state... Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus vanished, you realize eternal peace. - Ramana Maharshi
People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. - Thích Nhất Hạnh
It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past. - Alan Watts
Once you taste the peace, joy and serenity that result from the practice of slow mindful walking – you can practice walking meditation wherever you are. - Thich Nhat Hanh
The process of breathing, if fully understood and experienced in its profound significance, could teach us more than all the philosophies of the world. - Lama Govinda
The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful. - Swami Vivekananda
The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there. - Lao Tzu
Enjoy your problems. - Shunryu Suzuki
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. Embracing the totality of your experience is one definition of having loving kindness for yourself.
Loving kindness does not mean making sure you’re feeling good all the time – trying to set up your life so that you’re comfortable every moment. Rather, it means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty. - Pema Chödron
* * *
Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and find serenity. - Lama Surya Das
* * *
True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you. - Brad Warner
* * *
You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. - Eckhart Tolle
* * *
Many expressions that are in common usage, and sometimes the structure of language itself, reveal the fact that people don't know who they are. You say: "He lost his life" or "my life," as if life were something that you can possess or lose. The truth is: you don't have a life, you are life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy. Can you sense deep within that you already know that? Can you sense that you already are That?
– Eckhart Tolle
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.
– Unknown
Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be. - Alan Watts
You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quieting and relaxing the restless mind. Your nature is absolute peace. You are not the mind. Silence your mind through concentration and meditation, and you will discover the peace of the Spirit that you are, and have always been. - Remez Sasson
* * *
If you can't control what you think, you will not be able to control what you do.
* * *
The dangerous thing about assumptions are that they have the innate tendency to morph into beliefs with the passage of time. Assume, but always be aware of your assumptions and dispose of them at the very earliest, either by confirming them and accepting them as beliefs or disproving them and rejecting them as fallacies. - Unknown
* * *
The key to success is not through achievement, but through enthusiasm. - Malcolm Forbes
* * *
Being extravagantly generous is an enchanting way to become holy and Godlike, for God is awesomely extravagant — as is revealed by even a casual glance at creation. - Edward Hays, The Great Escape Manual
* * *
Help me to travel light, in every area of my life. Especially help me to unclutter my mind, so that I may hear you and see more clearly your mighty hand on my life. Amen.
You are a portal through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself. - Alan Watts
When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what's left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are. – Adyashanti
* * *
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. - Calvin Coolidge
* * *
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. - A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
* * *
What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones. - Sogyal Rinpoche
* * *
The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love. - Kahlil Gibran
* * *
There's a self expansive aspect of gratitude. Very possibly it's a little known law of nature: the more gratitude you have, the more you have to be grateful for.
Elaine St. James
* * *
The mind has to be empty to see clearly. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself. - Chogyam Trungpa
* * *
Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth.
– Diane Ackerman
* * *
The grateful heart is a manifestation of one's true self. Nothing sidelines the ego more effectively than a grateful heart.
Albert Nolan
* * *
Judgments that constrain your giving are the very demons that are keeping you from receiving. - Martha Beck
* * *
What I'm saying is, watch out, for your social conditioning, and how your constant commerce in language with other people shapes the way in which you actually sense the world. - Alan Watts
* * *To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. – John Burroughs
* * *
Viewing our experience in this world as a dream, the Buddha found that our habit of fixating on the mere appearance of our dreamlike relative world, thinking that it is truly existing, throws us into an endless cycle of pain and anxiety.
We are in a deep sleep, hibernating like a silkworm in a cocoon. We have woven a reality based on our projections, imagination, hopes, fears, and delusions. Our cocoons have become very solid and sophisticated. Our imaginings are so real to us that we are trapped in the cocoon. But we can free ourselves simply by realizing that this is all our imagination. - Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
* * *
The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door. – Thomas Merton
The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door. – Thomas Merton
* * *
If I could give you only one advice, I would say: Don't identify with anything. Be completely empty - no one. Be no-body and see if you lose anything but delusion. - Mooji
True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you. - Brad Warner
There is an intuitive knowing within us that we are eternal but this gets covered over with the noise we create while identifying with the impermanent. - Mooji
The final bridge to cross is to let go of the mind-created 'spiritual' self. Burn that bridge behind you. Stay empty of self-image and cease looking back. Remain in the neutrality of being. That's it! - Mooji
* * *
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little. - Master Cheng Yen
* * *
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. - Lao Tzu
* * *
Seek not outside yourself, for all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. -A Course in Miracles
True love does not come by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. ~ Jason Jordan
* * *
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu
* * *
All things—all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary—are equal expressions of the Infinite. – Adyashanti
* * *
By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world. By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.
– Albert Schweitzer
* * *
We are all connected. When you touch one thing, you are touching everything. Whatever we do has an effect on others. Therefore, we must learn to live mindfully to touch the peace inside each of us. Peace in the world starts with peace in oneself. If everyone lives mindfully, everyone will be more healthy, feel more fulfilled in their daily lives and there will be more peace. This collective mindfulness can bring positive change to our families, organizations, communities, nations and future generations. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Peace isn't an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth; it's an experience that's expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened. - Pema Chodron
* * *
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. – Thomas Paine
* * *
There must always be remaining in every life, some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful. –Rev. Howard Thurman
- * *
- For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.- Thich Nhat Hanh
- We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing?”- Swami Satchidananda
- The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself.- Deepak Chopra
- Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem.- Eckhart Tolle
- The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.- Paramahansa Yogananda
- It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actually realize this truth, we will have no suffering.- Shunryu Suzuki
- Contentment is a wealth that gives the highest satisfaction, and we can gain it simply by mining our own mental resources, and knowing our own mind. We can cultivate the perspective that what we have is enough. We can see that we do not actually need more than we already have, and can be completely satisfied with that.- 17th Karmapa
- Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.- Pema Chödron
- If you see and love the essence in others, it is because you have found the essence of your own Self. This is the purest form of compassion. It is not from one to another but from the Self to the Self. It is all one unity, you see?- Mooji
- Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.
Let go. Let Be. See through everything and be free, complete, luminous, at home -- at ease.- Lama Surya Das
- As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weakens and defeats you. - Morihei Ueshiba
- Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state... Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus vanished, you realize eternal peace. - Ramana Maharshi
- People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore. - Thich Nhat Hanh
- Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. - Thích Nhất Hạnh
- It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
- There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past. - Alan Watts
- Once you taste the peace, joy and serenity that result from the practice of slow mindful walking – you can practice walking meditation wherever you are. - Thich Nhat Hanh
- The process of breathing, if fully understood and experienced in its profound significance, could teach us more than all the philosophies of the world. - Lama Govinda
- The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful. - Swami Vivekananda
- The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there. - Lao Tzu
- Enjoy your problems. - Shunryu Suzuki
- You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. Embracing the totality of your experience is one definition of having loving kindness for yourself.
Loving kindness does not mean making sure you’re feeling good all the time – trying to set up your life so that you’re comfortable every moment. Rather, it means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty. - Pema Chödron
- * * *
- Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and find serenity. - Lama Surya Das
- * * *
- True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you. - Brad Warner
- * * *
- You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. - Eckhart Tolle
- * * *
- Many expressions that are in common usage, and sometimes the structure of language itself, reveal the fact that people don't know who they are. You say: "He lost his life" or "my life," as if life were something that you can possess or lose. The truth is: you don't have a life, you are life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy. Can you sense deep within that you already know that? Can you sense that you already are That?
- – Eckhart Tolle
- You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.
- – Unknown
- Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be. - Alan Watts
- You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quieting and relaxing the restless mind. Your nature is absolute peace. You are not the mind. Silence your mind through concentration and meditation, and you will discover the peace of the Spirit that you are, and have always been. - Remez Sasson
- * * *
- If you can't control what you think, you will not be able to control what you do.
- * * *
- The dangerous thing about assumptions are that they have the innate tendency to morph into beliefs with the passage of time. Assume, but always be aware of your assumptions and dispose of them at the very earliest, either by confirming them and accepting them as beliefs or disproving them and rejecting them as fallacies. - Unknown
- * * *
- The key to success is not through achievement, but through enthusiasm. - Malcolm Forbes
- * * *
- Being extravagantly generous is an enchanting way to become holy and Godlike, for God is awesomely extravagant — as is revealed by even a casual glance at creation. - Edward Hays, The Great Escape Manual
- * * *
· Help me to travel light, in every area of my life. Especially help me to unclutter my mind, so that I may hear you and see more clearly your mighty hand on my life. Amen.
- You are a portal through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself. - Alan Watts
- When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what's left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are. – Adyashanti
- * * *
- Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. - Calvin Coolidge
- * * *
- How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. - A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
- * * *
- What we have to learn, in both meditation and in life, is to be free of attachment to the good experiences, and free of aversion to the negative ones. - Sogyal Rinpoche
- * * *
- The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love. - Kahlil Gibran
- * * *
- There's a self expansive aspect of gratitude. Very possibly it's a little known law of nature: the more gratitude you have, the more you have to be grateful for.
- Elaine St. James
- * * *
- The mind has to be empty to see clearly. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
- The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself. - Chogyam Trungpa
- * * *
- Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth.
- – Diane Ackerman
- * * *
- The grateful heart is a manifestation of one's true self. Nothing sidelines the ego more effectively than a grateful heart.
- Albert Nolan
- * * *
- Judgments that constrain your giving are the very demons that are keeping you from receiving. - Martha Beck
- * * *
- What I'm saying is, watch out, for your social conditioning, and how your constant commerce in language with other people shapes the way in which you actually sense the world. - Alan Watts
- * * *
- To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. – John Burroughs
- * * *
- Viewing our experience in this world as a dream, the Buddha found that our habit of fixating on the mere appearance of our dreamlike relative world, thinking that it is truly existing, throws us into an endless cycle of pain and anxiety.
We are in a deep sleep, hibernating like a silkworm in a cocoon. We have woven a reality based on our projections, imagination, hopes, fears, and delusions. Our cocoons have become very solid and sophisticated. Our imaginings are so real to us that we are trapped in the cocoon. But we can free ourselves simply by realizing that this is all our imagination. - Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
- * * *
- The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door. – Thomas Merton
- * * *
- If I could give you only one advice, I would say: Don't identify with anything. Be completely empty - no one. Be no-body and see if you lose anything but delusion. - Mooji
- True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you. - Brad Warner
- There is an intuitive knowing within us that we are eternal but this gets covered over with the noise we create while identifying with the impermanent. - Mooji
- The final bridge to cross is to let go of the mind-created 'spiritual' self. Burn that bridge behind you. Stay empty of self-image and cease looking back. Remain in the neutrality of being. That's it! - Mooji
- * * *
- Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little. - Master Cheng Yen
- * * *
|
There is no greater sign of Divine Presence than being fully engaged in the activities of life while demonstrating loving-kindness, tranquility and ease of being. -
|
|
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN
|
Whenever you're feeling lonely or sad, try going to the loft on a beautiful day and looking outside. Not at the houses and the rooftops, but at the sky. As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more.” - From The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) by Anne Frank.
Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life. - RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.– Booker T. Washington
There’s no such thing as bad weather. . . just bad clothing choices. – J Noulin?
God is the DJ. Life is the dance. Love is the rhythm.
|
In each of us there is a spark that can reverse the trends of violence and depression spiraling within us and in the world around us. By setting in motion the spiral of gratefulness we begin the journey toward peace and joy. – Brother David Steindl-Rast
|
| |
You only have control over three things in your life—the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take. – Jack Canfield
It’s the perspective we choose—not the places we visit—that ultimately tells us where we stand. Every time I take a trip, the experience acquires meaning and grows deeper only after I get back home and, sitting still, begin to convert the sights I’ve seen into lasting insights.
—Pico Iyer, “Adventures in Going Nowhere”
The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy. - ABRAHAM H. MASLOW
Good people, like clouds, receive only to give away. – Indian proverb
Gratefulness is a setting of the heart, one that I can choose like a wavelength on the radio. - Susan Mazrolle
We crave that deep place within that cannot be touched by the ups and downs of life, but rather just IS – connected and whole. - KATIE RUBINSTEIN
At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough. - TONI MORRISON
|
We don’t have to take the story as truth. - JACK KORNFIELD
|
| |
Every wave on the ocean is the whole ocean waving... So, the ocean of being waves every one of us, and we are its waves. - ALAN WATTS
Everything connects us to everything else. - LEONARDO DA VINCI
We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. – Alan Watts
Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere; Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within. - JENNIFER WELWOOD
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words. -
—Joanna Macy and Sam Mowe, “The Work That Reconnects”
In situations of conflict, lovingkindness and compassion grow when we understand them to be the most beneficial motivation for responsive and effective action. —Joseph Goldstein, “Triumph of the Heart”
In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it. - WILLIAM SAROYAN
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. – HAFIZ
To live is to let go, and in order to live fully we must learn to let go fully and to embrace the flow that is the universe. - —Bodhipaksa, “What You’re Made Of”
Do not feel lonely; the entire universe is inside you. - RUMI
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. -VIKTOR FRANKL
|
Reality is permeated, indeed flooded, with divine creativity, nourishment, and care. - MARCUS J. BORG
|
| |
|
What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it. - ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
|
We are all connected: To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. And to the rest of the universe, atomically. - NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. - MARY OLIVER
Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. - MAYA ANGELOU
I felt in need of a great pilgrimage
so I sat still for three days. – KABIR
Conversation is a dynamic interplay between each person’s choice to speak or listen. When those choices are conscious and respectful, conversations tend to be more productive and enjoyable. - Oren Jay Sofer, “When to Speak and When to Listen”
Learning to drop what we’re doing, however momentarily, and to genuinely pay attention in the present moment, without attachment or bias, helps us become clear, just as a snow globe becomes clear when we stop shaking it and its flakes settle. - Lama Surya Das, “The Heart-Essence of Buddhist Meditation”
As your mindfulness develops, your resentment for the change, your dislike for the unpleasant experiences, your greed for the pleasant experiences, and the notion of selfhood will be replaced by the deeper awareness of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness. - Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Sitting Still”
We are each other's harvest;
we are each other's business;
we are each other's magnitude and bond.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
When I am grateful, I am neither rushing nor slouching through my day – I’m dancing. - BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST
Life is imperfect. People are imperfect.
Love is the perfect response. - KRISTI NELSON
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one. – Jojen, in George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. -
MARY JEAN IRION
The Now does not come and go, but includes everything all at once. When we’re aware of being in the Now, present moments come and go, like ripples and waves in the ocean of awake awareness. - Loch Kelly, “When Am I?”
Changing ourselves involves learning how to develop those states, behaviors, and dispositions that are healthy, while allowing the unhealthy ones to atrophy from neglect… Generosity, kindness, and wisdom can save us from ourselves. - Andrew Olendzki, “Turning the Corner”
A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. - RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
Everything flourishes in the nourishment of our appreciation; plants, people, the Earth, moments. When we live with that appreciation, we flourish. - KRISTI NELSON
Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the one unpardonable sin. – T.H. Huxley
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. – Bertrand Russell
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about. - From Kafka on the Shore (2002) by Haruki Murakami.
If we are too busy to be kind, we are too busy. - Allan Lokos
Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. - Jane Howard
Fine weather is a prejudice of youth. For an old man, the weather can be neither fine nor bad; it is the very texture of the weather that seems priceless, whether brightened by shafts of sunlight or clouded with darkness. - From Nouveaux Mémoires Intérieurs (1965) by François Mauriac, translated from the French by Herma Briffault.
When we meditate, we develop a creative awareness that enables us to see that we are a flow of inner conditions meeting outer conditions.
—Martine Batchelor,“The Woman in the Photograph
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival”.-Rumi
“There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”-From A Hat Full of Sky (2004) by Sir Terry Pratchett.
Practicing mindful awareness of...our conditioning and habits of the mind helps us to know what we are up against within ourselves as we seek to make change in the world.-Rhonda Magee,“Making the Invisible Visible”
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.– Pablo Picasso
My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness. -
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Indigenous traditions also value this balance in relationship to plants, trees, and the natural world. “We say that we know a thing when we know it not only with our physical senses, with our intellect, but also when we engage our intuitive ways of knowing, of emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge,” she says. “And that’s really what I mean by listening … What is the story that that being might share with us if we know how to listen as well as we know how to see?” - Robin Wall Kimmerer- botanist, member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
It’s easy to identify with all the places we’ve been hurt and abandoned, but can we identify with the timeless wholeness that weathers every abuse, every condition? —Bonnie Myotai Treace, “The Sword Disappears in the Water”
The mind is very powerful. Therefore, it requires firm guidance. A powerful jet plane needs a good pilot; the pilot of your mind should be the wisdom that understands its nature.—Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Your Mind Is Your Religion”
If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day. - Leonard Cohen
The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness.- Thich Nhat Hanh
Men plan and God laughs.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. - Nietzche
All things, we learn, are ourselves. Thus, practice necessarily leads to empathy.
—Charles Johnson, “A Sangha by Another Name”
A good deed doesn’t just evaporate and disappear. Its consequences saturate the universe and the goodness that happens somewhere, anywhere, helps in the transfiguration of the ugliness. - Desmond Tutu
I am in you and I am you. No one can understand this until he has lost his mind. - Rumi
If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a Juniper tree or the wings of a vulture-that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.-Edward Abbey
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. -
From John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir (1938)
It is useless to discuss the peace of the world. What is necessary just now is to create peace in ourselves that we, ourselves, become examples of love, harmony and peace. That is the only way of saving the world and ourselves. - Hazrat Inayit Khan
The Buddha pointed out that the seeds of liberative understanding and clarity, of kindness and compassion, lie within each of us. And the path to their fruition lies in our commitment. -
—Christina Feldman, “Doing, Being, and the Great In-Between”
God is truth and truth is God.- Hazrat Inayit Khan
The one who knows himself truly knows God.- Hazrat Ali
Practicing contentment is a radical act in a consumption-driven society.- Robin Wall Kimmerer
By widening the gap between action and reaction, you can gain some distance from your automatic responses and also gain an opportunity to know your emotions. You can stop being ruled by these emotions and instead begin to rule your experience of life.-
Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, “The Power of the Third Moment”
the sun, the moon, the planets, the air, the water and the earth are all serving you, aiding life's purpose and preparing for your food. Yet you regard all this unthankfully, absorbed in your own little troubles which are as nothing before the great forces of nature, always working, night and day. - Sa’di
Imagine a country whose citizens—maybe even its leaders—are brave, calm, and open towards each other; a country whose people realize that all human beings belong together as one family and must act accordingly; a country guided by Common Sense.-
Br. David Steindl-Rast
While we can’t control what’s happening around us, we can cultivate the capacity to be with what is with more ease, joy, and freedom.- Sebene Selassie
Be Silent
Hear the voices of day and night
Be Still
Know thyself
Be Aware
Find the secret.
-on plaque at Camp Akita
Self-denial is not renouncing things, it is denying the self; and the first lesson of self-denial is humility. - Hazrat Inayit Khan
The mind of an average person may be pictured as an unruly horse that jumps and kicks and throws anyone that tries to ride it. Masters of the world are those who have mastered themselves, and mastery lies in the control of the mind. If the mind became your obedient servant, the whole world is at your service. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
When the mind and body are restless, nothing in life can be accomplished. Success is the result of control - Hazrat Inayit Khan
You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. - Marcus Aurelius
The Buddha found what he had to see by sitting still, but even he had to travel to get to that point, to see through the other roads that would lead nowhere and come finally to the understanding that the truth we’re looking for is no further than the hair on our arms. - Pico Iyer, “The Long Road to Sitting Still”
We become what we think about.- Earl Nightingale
I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, "No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, 'I will see you again very soon'."
That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf. - Thich Nhat Hanh
My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.- Oliver Sacks
Appreciation can turn our planet into a sacred home and our communities into extended family. - KRISTI NELSON
Do not fear things that arise in the mind; question them, know them. The truth is more than thought and feelings, so do not believe and get caught by them. See the whole process arising and ceasing. This understanding gives rise to wisdom.- —Achaan Chah, “Walking: Meditation on the Move”
Everything flourishes in the nourishment of our appreciation; plants, people, the Earth, moments. When we live with that appreciation, we flourish.- Kristi Nelson
Gratitude celebrates life with a joyful "yes" at every knot of the great network in which everything is connected to everything.- Br. David Steindl-Rast
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.- Archibald Rutledge
You are not a passive observer in the cosmos. The entire universe is expressing itself through you at this very minute.- Deepak Chopra
Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides.- Anne Lamott
We are stars wrapped in skin; the light we are seeking has always been within. - Rumi
It is far too easy to discourage, all too easy to criticize, to complain, to rebuke. Let us try instead to see even a small amount of good in a person and concentrate on that. Let us be quicker to praise than to find fault. Let us be quicker to thank others than to complain.- Desmond Tutu
During this time of giving, we should not place too much importance on material gifts; it’s our thoughts, words, and deeds that count. Sincere expressions of appreciation, praise, thanks, and an unexpected helping hand can be the most treasured gifts of all.-Reverend Earl Ikeda, “O Bodhi Tree, O Bodhi Tree”
Experiencing the disappearance of discomfort soothes the mind, makes it confident, and allows for the insight of impermanence: Everything passes.- Sylvia Boorstein, “The Wisdom of Discomfort”
Love produces harmony and harmony creates beauty. Therefore the chief motto in life is 'Love, harmony and beauty'. Love, in all things and beings, the beloved God, in harmony all in the right understanding, and beautify your life by observing the beauty within and without. By love, harmony and beauty you must turn the whole of life into a single vision of divine glory. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Behind us all is one spirit and one life; how then can we be happy if our neighbor is not also happy? - Hazrat Inayit Khan
Knowing is a veneer our minds create and lay over the landscape like a painter’s drop cloth set upon a forest floor. Its uniformity protects us from the pine needles and beetles, but it also obscures them, as well as the soft moss, fragrant soil, and teeming complexity of nature’s bed.- Gregory Kramer
To attain peace, what one has to do is to seek that rhythm which is in the depth of our being. It is just like the sea: the surface of the sea is ever moving; the depth of the sea is still. And so it is with our life. If our life is thrown into the sea of activity, it is on the surface. We still live in the profound depths, in that peace. But the thing is to become conscious of that peace which can be found within ourselves. It is this which can bring us the answer to all our problems. If not, when we want to solve one problem, there is another difficult problem coming. There is no end to our problems. There is no end to the difficulties of the outer life. And if we get excited over them, we shall never be able to solve them. Some think, 'We might wait. Perhaps the conditions will become better. We shall see then what to do.' But when will the conditions become better? They will become still worse! Whether the conditions become better or worse, the first thing is to seek the kingdom of God within ourselves, in which there is our peace. As soon as we have found that, we have found our support, we have found our self. And in spite of all the activity and movement on the surface, we shall be able to keep that peace undisturbed if only we hold it fast by becoming conscious of it. - Hazrat Inayit Khan
If I could summarize nonviolence in one word, it would be: patience.- Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
People never harm others out of joy, they give pain to others because they too are hurt or in pain.- Sobonfu Somé
Spiritual practice is stepping out of the assumed reality of “me” by understanding what the “me” is and withdrawing energy from its perceptual fixations.- Rodney Smith, “Undivided Mind”
There are many paths, and each man considers his own the best and wisest. Let each one choose that which belongs to his own temperament.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Self-control therefore is the key to all success and happiness. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The content of life, the what, is always what it is at any given moment, just the fact, but it’s how we relate to that moment that will either lead us toward or away from more suffering.- Mark Van Buren, “Relating to Life”
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.- Maya Angelou
Each individual composes the music of his own life. If he injures another, he brings disharmony. When his sphere is disturbed, he is disturbed himself, and there is a discord in the melody of his life. If he can quicken the feeling of another to joy or to gratitude, by that much he adds to his own life; he becomes himself by that much more alive. Whether conscious of it or not, his thought is affected for the better by the joy or gratitude of another, and his power and vitality increase thereby, and the music of his life grows more in harmony.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
What really matters is gratitude. That’s the heart of spirituality. And gratitude connects us: it lets us see that we are all connected.- Kurt Spellmeyer, “Dialogue Across Difference”
‘For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.’-T.S. Eliot, From ‘Little Gidding’ in Four Quartets (1943)
Do your best and then relax. Let things go on in a natural way, rather than force them.- Paramahansa Yogananda
There is no other obstacle [for those on the spiritual path]than this false self, and there is no better means of controlling it than by meditation and by practicing the presence of God. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
...the truth cannot be put into words; all we can do is make an effort to render the mystery of life intelligible to our minds.. . The ultimate truth is that which cannot spoken, for words are too inadequate to express it.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
How wonderful would it be, while we discover faraway planets, to rediscover the needs of the brothers and sisters orbiting around us.- Pope Francis
The saying of the [Hadith], "Die before death," does not mean suicide, it means the death of the "I", the separate self.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
To meditate upon thoughts is simply to be aware, as thoughts arise, that the mind is thinking, without getting involved in the content.- Joseph Goldstein, “These Are Not ‘Your’ Thoughts”
The conscious mind- the self or soul- is a spin doctor, not the Commander-in-Chief. - Steven Pinker
A man’s self is the sum total of all that he can call his. - William James
Positive illusions make us more resiliant and more likely to succeed. - Bruce Hood
Man's attitude is the secret of life, for it is upon man's attitude that success and failure depend.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
Misbelief alone misleads. Hazrat Inayat Khan . . . so we should doubt our beliefs
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Behind every atom of this world hides an infinite universe. - Rumi (doubtful)
Meditation is learning how to be present and aware of what’s going on and learning to be able to distinguish between your judgment about a moment in time and the actual experience.- Tuere Sala
Like music, intention can influence our mood, thoughts, and feelings—setting an intention in the morning we set the tone for the day.- Thupten Jinpa, “Two Exercises for Turning Intention into Motivation”
Extend the circle of “us” to include as much of the world as you possibly can.- Rick Hanson
Clouds are not something to moan about. They are, in fact, the most dynamic, evocative and poetic aspect of nature. . . . to tune into the clouds is to slow down. It’s a moment of meteorological meditation. . . . We are part of the air. We don’t live beneath the sky. We live within the sky.- Gavin Pretor-Pinney
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.- Joy Harjo
The universe is like a dome; it vibrates to that which you say in it, and answers the same back to you; so also is the law of action we reap what we sow. . .
Every thing and being on the surface of existence seem separate from one another, but in every plane beneath the surface they approach nearer to each other, and in the innermost plane they all become one. Every disturbance therefore, caused to the peace of the smallest part of existence on the surface, inwardly affects the soul. Thus any thought, speech or action that disturbs peace is wrong, evil, and a sin; if it brings about peace it is right, good, and a virtue. Life being like a dome, its nature is also dome-like. Disturbance of the slightest part of life disturbs the whole and returns as a curse upon the person who caused it; any peace produced on the surface comforts the whole, and thence returns as peace to the producer.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
In, out. Deep, slow. Calm, ease. Smile, release.(during 4 breaths) - anon
A good deed doesn’t just evaporate and disappear. Its consequences saturate the universe and the goodness that happens somewhere, anywhere, helps in the transfiguration of the ugliness.- Desmond Tutu
The Sufi therefore, finds the only way out of the distress of life... He rises above it, taking all things as they come, patiently. He does not mind how he is treated. His principle is to do his best, and in that is his satisfaction. Instead of depending on another person to be kind to him, the Sufi thinks if he were kind to another person, that is sufficient. Every wise man in the long run through life will find in this principle the solution of happiness. For we cannot change the world, but we can change ourselves.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.- Albert Einstein
We are all as continuous with the physical universe, as a wave is continuous with the ocean. - Alan Watts
Life is a field and you are born to cultivate it. And if you know how to cultivate this field you can produce anything you like.- Kabir
Life is a mysterious web of intricate interdependent relationships,and diversity is at its heart.- Kenny Ausubel
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshiped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
- 'I have no name': A poem by Jiddu Krishnamurti
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.– Marcus Aurelius
The secret of healing, the mystery of evolving, the power of all attainments, and the way to spiritual realization, all come from the strengthening of that belief which is a conviction, so that nothing can ever change it.- Hazrat Inayit Khan
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. - Roald Dahl
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. - Mark Twain
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.- Albert Einstein
To become enlightened is to awaken to the mad truth that the precious personas we’ve been parading around as all these years, maybe all these lifetimes, are fictional constructs.- Sam Guthrie, “Getting There from Here”
Man forms his future by his actions. His every good or bad action spreads its vibrations and becomes known throughout the universe. The more spiritual a man is, the stronger and clearer are the vibrations of his actions, which spread over the world and weave his future. The universe is like a dome: it vibrates to that which you say in it, and echoes the same back to you. So also is the law of action: we reap what we sow. - Hazrat Inayit Khan
The first and last lesson in love is, 'I am not -- Thou art' and unless man is moved to that selflessness he does not know justice, right or truth.. . .There is no greater teacher of morals than love itself, for the first lesson that one learns from love is, 'I am not, you are.' This is self-denial, self-abnegation, without which we cannot take the first step on love's path. . . - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Grateful living is the awareness that we stand on holy ground—always—in touch with Mystery.- Br. David Steindl-Rast
I no longer know the difference between image and reality. Like the shadow, I an and I am not. - Rumi
It is the blessed soul whose heart is empty of self, who is filled with the light of God. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
There are many ideas which intoxicate man, many feelings there are which act upon the soul as wine, but there is no stronger wine than the wine of selflessness. It is a might and it is a pride that no worldly rank can give. To become something is a limitation, whatever one may become. Even if a person were to be called the king of the world, he would still not be emperor of the universe. If he were the master of earth, he would still be the slave of Heaven. It is the person who is no one, who is no one and yet all. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Sufi, therefore, takes the path of being nothing instead of being something. It is this feeling of nothingness which turns the human heart into an empty cup into which the wine of immortality is poured. It is this state of bliss which every truth-seeking soul yearns to attain. It is easy to be a learned person, and it is not very difficult to be wise. It is within one's reach to become good. And it is not an impossible achievement to be pious or spiritual. But if there is an attainment greater and higher than all these things, it is to be nothing. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
When one praises the beauty of God, one's soul is filled with bliss. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
It is impossible that you go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have. - Cheryl Strayad
Worry pretends to be necessary. - Jon Kabat Zinn
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. - Jon Kabat Zinn
Drink water from the spring where the horse drinks. A horse will never drink bad water. Make your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that was touched by the worm. Freely pick the mushrooms on which the insects sit. Plant your tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake suns itself. Dig your well where the birds build their nests in hot weather. Go to sleep and wake up with the chickens and you will reap the golden grain of the day. Eat more green vegetables, and you will have strong legs and an enduring heart. Swim more often and you will feel on land like a fish in the water. Look at the skies more often and not at your feet, and your thoughts will be clear and light. Keep silent more often, speak less, and silence will reign in your soul, and your spirit will be calm and peaceful. - St. Seraphim of Sarov
Self-pity is the worst poverty; it is the source of all unhappiness and blinds man to all he should be thankful for. The constantly complaining habit and the tendency to demand sympathy from others bring the greatest thorn into man's life: he becomes dependent upon the sympathy of others. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God. - Rumi
The Spirit of Guidance is a plant that grows and blossoms when it meets with response and care; and when it is watered by the rainfall of divine inspiration it blooms in the light of the divine sun. The Spirit of Guidance is the light of God, which may be likened to a lantern that the farmer carries when walking on the farm in the darkness of night. It is like a searchlight, which shows up any object upon which it is thrown; and so when the light of the Spirit of Guidance is thrown upon any aspect of life, man receives a keen insight into it. In the Spirit of Guidance one finds a living God active in the heart of every person. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The map is not the territory. - Korbyski
A true friend is one soul in two bodies. - Aristotle
When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment. - Pema Chödrön, “The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human”
Concentration is activity of mind in the direction desired; our desire dictates in which way the mind is to be active; the mind acts according to our wishes. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
All that you touch you Change. All that you Change Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change. - Octavia Butler
The pull of the future is stronger than the push of the past. - anon
Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public. - J. B. S. Haldane
Most of the problems that disturb us are of our own creation. This is why it is so essential that we learn to establish peace of mind. It’s evident that being in a state of constant anger and fear destroy any sense of inner peace, while cultivating compassion and concern for others reduces these destructive emotions. Better to be altruistic and think of your neighbors as brothers and sisters. - Dalai Lama
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. - Edith Wharton
He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing. - Epicurus
Acceptance anchors us so that we might focus on the present rather than endlessly drift in a sea of wishing, dreaming, and pining for anything other than what is. - Rose Zonetti
To a mystic, his whole life is one continuous symphony, a playing of music, with each soul contributing his particular part to the symphony. A person's success therefore depends upon the idea he has of harmony. Very few people in the world pay attention to harmony. They do not know that without it, there is no chance of happiness. It is only the harmonious ones who can make others happy and partake of that happiness themselves; and apart from them, it is hard to find happiness in the world. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The method of attainment is to endeavor always to make others happy and by experiencing happiness in the happiness of others. In the terms of the Sufi, it is Suluk. Any selfishness prevents us from appreciating another's happiness and therefore we shall be kept back, for the happiness of others is the gate to our own happiness. Real happiness is entering the gate. We must feel satisfaction in another's satisfaction ... If a person needs a certain thing and we can supply it, we should be happy, how ever small the thing may be. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
What we grasp of truth is necessarily always partial and limited. No matter how huge your hands and how firm your grip, you can only hold so much. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for. - John A. Shedd
Time is what we want most and what we use worst. - William Penn
Gratitude is an ascending reflection of a descending grace. - Beverly Novak
People depend upon peaceful coexistence with each other and with Mother Nature to live in true harmony. No one exists in isolation. - Wu Tong
I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree. Poems are made by fools like me but only God can make a tree. - Joyce Kilmer
We are not an individual. We are a vast network of molecules, energies and wavelengths. The interconnectedness of being is who we are. - the fungi (in the documentary, Fantastic Fungi)
If there is anything needed in spiritual teaching, in seeking truth, in self-realization, it is the refinement of the ego. For the same ego which begins by being our worst enemy, will in the end, if developed and cultivated and refined, become our best friend. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Everything ultimately depends on one’s own action. If you help others, if you serve others, you benefit. So altruism is a source of happiness. - the Dalai Lama
There are two different kinds of happiness. The first is the enjoyment of pleasure through our senses. But we can also experience happiness at the deeper level through our mind, such as through love, compassion, and generosity characterized by a sense of fulfillment. While the joy of the senses is brief, the joy at this deeper level is much longer lasting. It is true joy. - the Dalai Lama
The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.- the Dalai Lama
The word yoga refers to the integration of body, breath, and mind, and to the dissolution of the sense of separation between the “self” as subject and the “other” as object. Whenever this state manifests—whether one is sitting, walking, cutting carrots, or changing diapers—there is yoga. - —Frank Jude Boccio, “Breath and the Body”
We create anger by a series of thoughts that result in a particular emotional and physiological state. Anger doesn’t just happen to us. If we’re able to catch an angry thought as it’s budding, we can let it go. - John Daido Loori Roshi, “Between Two Mountains”
We are what we repeatedly do. - Will Durant
Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Bad habits are the result of diligently training the wrong things. - Justin Kan
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we are in harmony with the way everything proceeds from everything else, we cannot act wrongly.- Ram Dass
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.- Søren Kierkegaard
If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.- Thich Nhat Hahn
The game is not about becoming somebody, it’s about becoming nobody. - Ram Dass
All models are wrong but some models are useful. - Carlos E. Perez
You are the sky. The clouds are what happens, what comes and goes. - Eckhart Tolle
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.- Will Rogers
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body. - Seneca
Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Joy, sorrow, love, all depend on our thought, on the activity of our mind. If we are depressed, if we are in despair, it is still the work of our mind; our mind has prepared that for us. If we are joyful and happy, and all things are pleasant, that also has been prepared for us by our mind. It is only when our mind works without control that unhappiness, sorrow, trouble, pain, or whatever we experience comes without our intention. No one could wish to create hell for himself; all would create heaven for themselves if they could; and yet how many allow their minds to create these things for them, regardless of their own intention. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence. And of course, the greatest challenge (and gift) is to see the sacred in each other. - Alma Luz Villanueva
The “practice of affirmations”, then, is simply the act of taking back control of our lives and our thoughts. Instead of letting our subconscious tendencies rule our decision-making faculties, we consciously choose the qualities we want to develop through affirmations.- Shivendra Misra
Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.- A.A. Milne (via Eeyore)
Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.- Rumi
Education must not simply teach work - it must teach Life.- E.B. Du Bois
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. - Seneca
Every scientific “fact” should have an asterisk next to it that reads, “until proven otherwise.” The truth, it seems, is as elusive as a shadow: Once you turn on the light, it vanishes. - Michael Laitman
Attention is the doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. - Robin Wall Kimmerer
When we sow a seed, we plant a narrative of future possibility. - Sue Stuart-Smith
Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. - John Muir
Tat tvam asi. Thou art that. - the Upanishads
The world is made up of events, not things. Even the things that are most ‘thing-like’ are nothing more than long events. - Carlo Rovelli
Being connected to the sage in the heart, elders become instinctive humanitarians who can embody wisdom and serve the highest ideals of humanity. Having survived their own troubles, elders are not shocked or overwhelmed by the crises and conflicts that exist in the world. Having repeatedly seen how things fall apart, elders have also witnessed the uncanny ways in which both nature and culture find roots of renewal. In the dark times, the archetypal energy of the elders tries to awaken and help find ways for creation to continue. - Michael Meade
Life is not about “or” — it is about “and.” It is magical and messy. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking. It is delight and disappointment. Grace and grief. Exquisite and excruciating, often at the exact same time. - Kristi Nelson
The Sufi in the East says to himself, Ishq Allah Ma'bud Allah, which means 'God is Love, God is the Beloved', in other words it is God who is Love, Lover, and Beloved. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
A true worshipper of God sees His presence in all forms, and thus in respecting others he respects God. It may even develop to such an extent that the true worshipper of God, the Omnipresent, walks gently on the earth, bowing in his heart even to every tree and plant, and it is then that the worshipper forms a communion with the Divine Beloved at all times. - - Hazrat Inayat Khan
They say, 'Forgive and forget', which is very expressive of the process of forgiveness. It is impossible to forgive unless you can forget. What keeps man from forgiving his fellow man is that he holds the fault of another constantly before his view. It is just like sticking a little thorn in one's own heart and keeping it there and suffering the pain. It may also be pictured as putting a drop of poison in one's own heart and retaining it until the whole heart becomes poisoned. Verily, blessed are the innocent, who do not notice anybody's fault, and the greater credit is to the mature souls, who, recognizing a fault, forget it and so forgive. How true are the words of Christ, 'Let those throw a stone who have not sinned.' The limitations of human life make man subject to faults. Some have more faults, some have less, but there is no soul without faults. As Christ says, 'Call me not good.' - Hazrat Inayat Khan
A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord. - Paramahansa Yogananda
Be like water. - Bruce Lee
You never step in the same river twice. - Heraclitus
Panta rhei or “everything flows,” stated Heraclitus two and a half millennia ago. This is the fundamental feature of reality. It never stays the same. - Peter Burns
Diligence is the mother of good fortune. - Miguel de Cervantes
There is a time to act, and a time to wait, to listen, to observe. Then understanding and clarity can grow. From understanding, action arises that is purposeful, firm, and powerful. - Charles Eisenstein
When we can step back and see everything, that’s when we start experiencing realization and enlightenment. We see the nature of everything because we have the flexibility and the adaptability; we can spread out. - Lama Rod Owens
The first exercise to help the will power to develop would be to check every act, word, and thought which we do not wish to occur; to avoid unintentional actions, speech, and thoughts. The other exercise that is necessary for the development of the will power is that of seeing that neither our mind nor our body rules us, but that we rule our body and our mind. Desires such as appetite, thirst, sleep, even the desire of moving or standing or walking, all these desires should be under control. There should be a time in every day when every desire of the body is checked. See if you can do it; and then as long as you can let the body go without listening to it, do so. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mastery lies in the control of the mind. If the mind became your obedient servant, the whole world is at your service. The king of mind is greater than the king of a nation. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
It’s very important to recognize that it’s not other people who are annoying. It’s our mind which reacts to people doing what we don’t want and feeling upset about it. We don’t have to feel upset. That’s up to us. - Tenzin Palmo
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. - William Shakespeare
Every being and object which is distinctly separate may be called an entity, but what one calls an individual is a conception of our imagination; and the true meaning of that conception will be realized on the day when the ultimate truth throws its light upon life. On that day no one will speak about individuality; one will say 'God' and no more. . . . There are many beings, but at the same time there is one, the only Being. Therefore objects such as streams and mountains are also living, but they only exist separately to our outer vision. When our inner vision opens then the separation is shown as a veil; then there is one vision alone, and that is the immanence of God. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Everything you do, every local change in the universe provokes a change in the rest of the universe. Every action causes a reaction everywhere in the rest of the universe. The universe is interconnected at every level, throughout all levels, from the smallest to the largest. - Nassim Haramein
It’s hard to listen without judgment, to tolerate ambiguity, paradox, and in some cases, ignorance. But if we are ever to experience any measure of true peace, this is something we will all need to learn. - Tina Lear, “Having Real Conversations (Even with My Sister)”
The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it. - Epicurus
The teaching of Sufism is to transform everyday life into a religion, so that every action may bear some spiritual fruit.- Hazrat Inayat Khan
True happiness is in love, which is the stream that springs from one's soul. He who will allow this stream to run continually in all conditions of life, in all situations, however difficult, will have a happiness which truly belongs to him, the source of which is not without, but within. If there is a constant outpouring of love one becomes a divine fountain, for from the depth of the fountain rises the stream and, on its return, it pours upon the fountain, bathing it continually. It is a divine bath, the true bath in the Ganges, the sacred river. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao Tzu
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary […] but love it
If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event — and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. - Nietzsche
We can always begin again. - Sharon Salzberg
Every man is entitled to his opinion, but no man is entitled to his own facts. - Bernard Baruch
We and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts… Now all this is literally true, as men knew in the great past, and as they will know again. - D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse
Joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path... You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. – Anne Lamott
To the eye of the seer every leaf of the tree is a page of the holy book that contains divine revelation, and he is inspired every moment of his life by constantly reading and understanding the holy script of nature. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. - Dorothy Day
We are often the last ones to grasp the impacts of our actions. So we do well not to let our self-concepts get in the way of inviting and deeply considering feedback from others. - Joseph Bobrow Roshi, “Purify Your Motivation”
You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. - André Gide
{many of]The things that frighten us just want to be held. - Mark Nepo
Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. - Valarie Kaur
Our limited self is like a wall separating us from the Self of God. God is as far away from us as that wall is thick. The wisdom and justice of God are within us, and yet they are far away under the covering of the veil of the limited self. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Love is a continual sacrifice. And what does sacrifice mean? Sacrifice means forgetting of the self. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. - Mary Jean Irion
We are each cells in the living body of the larger whole. Whatever is happening to us is both personal and part of the whole, just as every cell in our biological body is both unique and part of the body. Whatever we are going through is part of the planetary struggle to evolve. Our personal crises are also births of ourselves as members of the larger body. We do not do this work for ourselves alone. - Barbara Marx Hubbard
The effects of our actions extend through space and time like ripples on a pond, influencing not only our future selves but also our surroundings. If we wish to be a certain kind of person and live in a certain kind of world, we need to be heedful about the seeds we cultivate. - Seth Zuiho Segall, “A More Enlightened Way of Being”
You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather. - Pema Chödrön
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. . . . When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day leads you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. - Herman Hesse
A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering. - the Dalai Lama
We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space in which the field is extremely intense. . . . There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality. - Albert Einstein
An electron is a quantized ripple of the electron quantum field, which acts as a particle because it travels holistically with its conserved quantities always sustained as a unit. - Mani Bauhmik
A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness. - Albert Einstein
I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care for money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. The only thing that gives me pleasure, apart from my work, my violin and my sailboat, is the appreciation of my fellow workers.” — Albert Einstein
I am sometimes sorry for men like Ford. Everybody who comes to them wants something from them. Such men do not always realize that the adoration which they receive is not a tribute to their personality but to their power or their pocketbook. Great captains of industry and great kings fall into the same error. An invisible wall impedes their vision. - Albert Einstein
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. - Albert Einstein
brilliantly connected this through one of the great laws of physics (that is written on his tombstone depicted below), which states that the entropy of a system is given by the natural logarithm of the number of possible microstates of the ensemble (in other words, the disorder of the system) times a constant. - on Boltzmann’s gravestone is S=k.logW
Uniformity is not nature’s way; diversity is nature’s way. - Vandana Shiva
The mind of an average person may be pictured as an unruly horse that jumps and kicks and throws anyone that tries to ride it. Masters of the world are those who have mastered themselves, and mastery lies in the control of the mind. If the mind became your obedient servant, the whole world is at your service. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
This is a dreamlike illusion, a temporary mirage, a fleeting fabrication. Let it go and rest. - Pema Düddul, “Freedom From Illusion”
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”- Philip K. Dick
Reality can be distorted when seen through a lens of thought. . . .Thought can create a version of reality, warping what’s actually real through a prism of belief. - Paul Mulliner
Because the mind is the basis of everything good or ill, nothing is more important than gaining control over the mind. - Khenpo David Karma Choephel, “Shantideva on Mental Discipline”
Gratitude creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you have what you need. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver. - Robin Wall Kimmerer
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise – then you will discover the fullness of your life. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
Patience can demand the most determined effort, especially when the habits of irritation and anger have built up over a lifetime or more, yet it is enlivened by the sweetest of qualities, such as humor, lightness, and perspective. - Sarah Kanowski, “Raging Buddha”
As soon as I wake up in the morning, I remind myself that nothing exists as it appears. Then I think about sentient beings who want happiness, but experience suffering. I generate compassion for them, determined to help them as much as I can to eliminate their negative emotions. - Dalai Lama
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. - Marcus Aurelius
Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity. - The Buddha
Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. - Minister and columnist Frank Crane
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age. - Sophia Loren
A stable, solid body is a mental image superimposed onto a stream of events in the same way that a spinning propeller is seen as a circle. The constant succession of discrete acts of cognition or feeling appears as a monolithic event, just as the rapid change of frames in a film appears as a smooth continuum. - The Dalai Lama and Thubten Chodron, “An Unbroken Sequence”
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy. - Thich Nhat Hanh
You build your mind, so make it into something you want to live with. - Marilynne Robinson
The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life. - Rabindranath Tagore
When we begin to feel the benefits of meditation practice, it is like putting on glasses for the first time. Once we learn to sit with the breath, be with the present moment, and create space between ourselves and our thoughts, our lives come into focus and we awaken to the possibility of something else—the alleviation of suffering. - Jessica Angima, “The High of New Beginnings—and the Joy of What Comes Next”
Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope. - Rebecca Solnit
Mysticism is the experience, not talking or thinking about it, but the actual experience of Oneness with all. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning, a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep burning and unquenchable. - Bruce Lee
Healing comes when you see the opportunity for growth that a painful situation has provided. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
Awakening reveals the no-thingness of things—that no thing is apart from all other things. To realize truly that there is only this nature, with no “other” outside us, is to naturally want to refrain from causing harm, just as we refrain from doing harm to one of our own limbs or eyes. - Bodhin Kjolhede, “Pain, Passion, and the Precepts”
Give me coffee to change the things I can, and wine to accept those that I cannot.
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. - Seneca
All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. - Henry Ellis
* *
Living well involves your reaction to life’s obstacles, uncertainties and misfortunes. - Thomas Oppong
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. - Voltaire
Living well is your sole responsibility.
Learning to live in the present is a mindful practice that takes time, but it’s worth it.
Build and improve relationships that put your mental health first.
Embrace lifelong learning: become wiser than you were yesterday today.
If you are in a position to help another human, take the opportunity to put a smile on someone’s face.
Be more conscious about emotional decisions and how you spend your emotional energy.
Worrying about things out of your control is draining. Take proactive steps to fix your problems instead.
“Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.” — Marcus Aurelius
Nurture healthy friendships: your happiness depends on them.
Feed your curiosities: you will be surprised at what you find.
Define your life principles, values and morals and learn to live by them.
Read biographies: they are full of incredible life insights for your future.
Enrich your life through contemplation, solitude walks and meditations.
Show and express gratitude. Think about the good things in your life.
Cherish meaningful experiences. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away, “ Maya Angelou said.
Your best life is hidden in the uncomfortable experiences you are avoiding. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said.
Finally, remember pursuing life-changing wisdom can help you live a meaningful, productive, and fulfilling life.
Living well is a commitment. Find the best wisdom and commit to proactive actions that bring out the best in you daily. - Thomas Oppong
* *
At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough. - Toni Morrison
The Sufi therefore, finds the only way out of the distress of life... He rises above it, taking all things as they come, patiently. He does not mind how he is treated. His principle is to do his best, and in that is his satisfaction. Instead of depending on another person to be kind to him, the Sufi thinks if he were kind to another person, that is sufficient. Every wise man in the long run through life will find in this principle the solution of happiness. For we cannot change the world, but we can change ourselves. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance. - Abigail Adams
We should not be too confident in our belief of anything. - Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, I.32
Every kind of power lies in this one thing which we call by the simple name: love. Charity, generosity, kindness, affection, endurance, tolerance, and patience -- all these words are different aspects of one; they are different names of only one thing: love. Whether it is said, 'God is love,' or whatever name is given to it, all the names are the names of God; and yet every form of love, every name for love, has its own peculiar scope, has a peculiarity of its own. Love as kindness is one thing, love as tolerance is another, love as generosity is another, love as patience another; and yet from beginning to end it is just love. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Mystics of all ages have not been known for their miraculous powers or for the doctrines they have taught, but for the devotion they have shown throughout their lives. The Sufi in the East says to himself, 'Ishq Allah Ma'bud Allah, which means 'God is Love, God is the Beloved', in other words it is God who is love, lover, and beloved. When we hear the stories of the miraculous powers of mystics, of their great insight into the hidden laws of nature, of the qualities which they manifested through their beautiful personalities, we realize that these have all come from one and the same source, whether one calls it devotion or whether one calls it love. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
May we be the forces of nature we came here to be. - Aline Ra M
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Daniel J. Boorstin
The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have. - Sheryl Sandberg
This is what is meant by union with God. It is in reality the dissolving of the false self in the knowledge of the true self, which is divine, eternal, and all pervading. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
The mystic's work is to forget the self, to lose himself like a bubble in the water. The wave realizes, 'I am the sea', and by falling into the sea prostrates itself before its God. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. - Mark Twain
We don’t fall in love; we rise in love.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. - Alan Watts
We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. - Alan Watts
The sole aim of the mystic is to keep near to the idea of unity and to find out where we unite. There is an Arabic saying, 'If you wish to know God, you must know yourself.' How little man knows while he is in the intoxication of individualism! He thinks, 'I am a separate being; you are another; there is no connection between you and me, and we all have our own joys and free will.' Did man but know it, his life is dependent not only on the objects and things that keep the body alive, but also on the activity of a thousand minds in a day. ... Who then can say, 'I am an individual, independent and free, I can think as I wish, and I can do what I wish? ... We are connected with one another. Our lives are tied together, and there is a link in which we can see one current running through all. There are many globes and lamps, and yet one current is running through all. The mystic seeks to realize this constantly and to impress it on his mind in whatever he may see. What, for him, are the waves of the sea? Are they not the sea itself? - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Something precious is lost if we rush headlong into the details of life without pausing for a moment to pay homage to the mystery of life and the gift of another day. - Kent Nerburn
Life is a field and you are born to cultivate it. And if you know how to cultivate this field you can produce anything you like. All the need of your life can be produced in this field. All that your soul yearns after and all you need is to be got from the field, if you know how to cultivate it and how to reap the fruit. - Kabir
Gratefulness has three steps: not missing the opportunity, appreciating the opportunity, and using or enjoying the opportunity. By this method we come fully alive, full of joy, which is what we are all longing for. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
It is not necessary to be a prisoner of old karma. It is always possible to change your karma. You can make new karma. But there is only one time that you ever have to do it. Can you guess when that might be? - Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Changing Karma”
Let us slow down enough to truly notice all that is presenting itself to us as blessing. - Kristi Nelson
We can remember that today we can be a gift to each person we meet, just by looking at them with eyes of love. - Terry Patten
Desirable things do not have to beguile the mind, and undesirable ones do not have to bring endless resistance. We can let the winds blow through us instead of letting them buffet us about. - Mark Epstein, “How Meditation Failed Me”
To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear. - Mark Nepo
Our minds need to be dusted and swept just as much as our houses, and this we do by meditation and concentration, which wipe away all wrong impressions. We must be masters of our own minds as well as our houses, and not allow them to be like a furniture warehouse with all the furniture mixed up together. We must direct where everything is to be placed, so that complete order may reign therein. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life…and the world. - Sarah Ban Breathnach
The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs. - Joan Didion
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. - Yoda in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding. --John O'Donohue
Sages, such as St. Francis, have spoken with rocks, birds, and animals, not as we talk, but by means of an insight into things. And every object expressed itself to them, speaking to them about its past, its present, and its future. ... The seer will see all in his consciousness, and wherever he casts his glance, he will see still more clearly. As Sadi says, 'Each leaf of a tree becomes a book of revelation to the one who sees. And he reads the whole of nature as a book.' - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Wine is symbolical of the soul's evolution. Wine comes from the annihilation of grapes, immortality comes from the annihilation of self. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
I drink the wine of Thy divine presence and lose myself in its intoxication. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere. - van Gogh
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace–only that it meets us where we are but doesn’t leave us where it found us. - Anne Lamott
Everything flourishes in the nourishment of our appreciation; plants, people, the Earth, moments. When we live with that appreciation, we flourish. - Kristi Nelson
As long as we’re using up our energy to resist our circumstances, we won’t be able to dedicate it to the work of true transformation. - Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “The Gift of Contemplation”
To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe — to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it — is a wonder beyond words. - Joanna Macy
Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. - Kahlil Gibran
Adopt the pace of nature: Her secret is patience. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Equanimity acts like the ballast of a ship. Although the ship is blown one way or the other by the winds of life, it neither sinks nor goes too far off-course. - Christopher Willard, “How Parents and Children Can Learn Balance and Equanimity from the Eight Worldly Winds”
The great twentieth-century Thai forest master, Ajahn Buddhadasa, was once asked how he would describe the state of the world today. He replied, “Lost in thought!”
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. - Mary Oliver
Pay attention to what you pay attention to. - Amy Krouse Rosenthal
The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves. - Terry Tempest Williams
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. - Bertrand Russell
We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced. - Malala Yousafzai
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. - Gloria Steinem
Maybe we simply need now and then to look up at the silent stars and lose ourselves to be set free. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
Part of our task is to discover how all our ancestors inform our lives–and the same holds true for all forms of life, for we have been shaped not only by human ancestors but also by the environments in which they lived. - Joan Halifax, “Giving Birth to Ancestors”
O peace-maker, before trying to make peace throughout the world, first make peace within thyself! - Hazrat Inayat Khan
We are dependent on others, yet we also contribute to others. Such is the nature of our existence, which includes our relationships with our family, our friends, our community, the nation, the international community, and the natural world. - Rev. Dr. Kenneth Tanaka, “The Land of Many Dharmas”
I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. - John D. Rockefeller
Hope is a flame that we nurture within our hearts. It may be sparked by someone else—by the encouraging words of a friend, relative, or mentor—but it must be fanned and kept burning through our own determination. - Daisaku Ikeda, “On Hardship & Hope”
When we change the conversation, we change the future. - Juanita Brown
We do not become less human by purging toxins from our emotional life but rather more nobly human. Abandoning greed, hatred, and delusion at every opportunity, we are still left with a rich, nuanced, and healthier emotional life. - Andrew Olendzki, “The Buddha’s Smile”
Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. - Cornel West
Nothing is worth more than laughter. - Frida Kahlo
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well…for there is a Force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go. - ulian of Norwich
Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky. - Rabindranath Tagore
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. - Mahatma Gandhi
There is a flow to the universe of giving and receiving. - Deepak Chopra
Life is imperfect. People are imperfect. Love is the perfect response. - Kristi Nelson
You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things — to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. - Sir Edmund Hillary
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; The wise grows it under his feet. - James Oppenheim
The deep happiness of well-being comes from caring for yourself and loving the world. It comes from offering what’s good in you to others, giving your gifts to a world that needs it. - - Jack Kornfield, “Finding Freedom Right Here, Right Now”
One man can make a difference and every man should try. - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
I have no special talents. I am just passionately curious. - Albert Einstein
O cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration,
soften the ground of our being and carve out a space within us where your Presence can abide.
Fill us with your creativity so that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.
Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire.
Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share what each being needs to grow and flourish.
Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us, as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.
Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose, but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment.
For you are the ground and the fruitful vision, the birth, power, and fulfillment, as all is gathered and made whole once again.
And So It Is!
- The Lord's Prayer...a neo-pagan version offered in Theatre in Your Life purportedly (?) translated from Aramaic directly into English, rather than from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English. From FB post of Rick Archer
It ain’t what you don’t know, that counts; it’s what you know that ain’t so. -anon
But to be overly busy cannot possibly bring peacefulness. It cannot bring contentment. It cannot bring a heart full of love; it cannot bring a heart that can actually bring the mind to meditation. - Ayya Khema, “There’s No Need to be Busy”
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
You have to believe in the long term plan you have but you need the short term goals to motivate and inspire you. - Roger Federer
To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there. - Kofi Annan
Do not take the example of another as an excuse for your own wrongdoing. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
We learn from mistakes, and also from letting others point out our mistakes: when we said things poorly, when we misunderstood, when we completely misjudged another person, when we failed to sustain a harmonious relationship. Mistakes and failures make up the rich seedbed of self-reflection and improvement. - Krishnan Venkatesh, “How to Practice Right Speech Anywhere, Anytime, and with Anyone”
If you distinguish between pain and suffering, change is possible. As the saying goes, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. - Jon Kabat-Zinn, “At Home In Our Bodies”
Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. - Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
All that is constructed is subject to destruction; all that is composed must be decomposed; all that is formed must be destroyed; that which has birth has death. . . Death is a tax the soul has to pay for having had a name and a form. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant. - William A. Ward
We need to become newly aware of the love that has infused our lives all along, to turn our attention to it afresh with the eyes of a child. - Lama John Makransky, “Love Is All Around”
Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems. - Bill Watterson
To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly. - Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
If you feel you are in a black hole, don't give up. There's a way out. - Stephen Hawking
For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. - Jane Wagner
Through light and joy is the world opened up, revealed for what it is: ineffable beauty, unending creation. - Henry Miller
Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. - Anne Lamott
Gratitude celebrates life with a joyful “yes” at every knot of the great network in which everything is connected to everything. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. - Rachel Carson
Take action! An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention. -
– Steve Maraboli
* *
The formula for success is simple: practice and concentration, then more practice and more concentration. - Babe Didrikson Zaharias
My religion is kindness. - H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. - Truman Capote
Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us. - Stephen Covey
While we can’t control what’s happening around us, we can cultivate the capacity to be with what is with more ease, joy, and freedom. - Sebene Selassie
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. - Mary Oliver
The best protection any woman can have is courage. - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. - Indira Gandhi
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. - Anaïs Nin
Contemplation is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is a spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. - Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation
An “imagined reality” is an addictive mental drug that humans are infatuated with. It cures the frustration brought about by the constraints of the actual reality. . . . An imagined reality satisfies an emotional need. - Avi Loeb
The grateful heart is a manifestation of one’s true self. Nothing sidelines the ego more effectively than a grateful heart. - Albert Nolan
The only way we can make the most of our lives is to make the most of our moments. - Cleo Wade
There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. - Charlotte Bronte
Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you. - Rumi
Optimism is a happiness magnet. - Mary Lou Retton
We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Perhaps the most radical act of resistance in the face of adversity is to live joyfully. - Ari Honarvar
To lead people, walk behind them. - Lao Tzu
The difference between an unwise person and a wise person lies in how they respond to pain, not in whether or not they achieve an absence of pain. - Vidyamala Burch, “A Gateway to Freedom”
You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it. - Yann Martel
The facts themselves never speak our language. - Benjamin Cain
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there - George Harrison
Art is a language which anneals individuals to each other through experiences that are uniquely human. - Ann Lauterbach
Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden. - Voltaire
We feel like separate water droplets but we are also ocean. - Jane Hirshfield
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. - The Bible, James 3:13
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Tao Te Ching
The person who is always involved in good deeds experiences incessant Divine happiness. - Rig Veda
True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire. - Cesar Chavez
It is a happy talent to know how to play. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Forgiveness condones nothing, but it does cast off the chains of anger, judgment, resentment, denial, and pain that choke growth. In this way, it allows for life, for freedom. - Michele Harper
The brain speaks through words; the heart in the glance of the eyes; and the soul through a radiance that charges the atmosphere, magnetizing all. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance. - Jean Antoine Petit-Senn
Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. - Vince Lombardi
Love is really more of an interactive process. It’s about what we do, not just what we feel. It’s a verb, not a noun. - bell hooks
Just as cultivating a garden requires turning over the ground, pulling weeds, planting, and watering, doing the work of love is all about taking action. - bell hooks
I never practice, I always play. - Wanda Landowska, pianist, harpsicordist
Like any form of strength, generosity needs to be intentionally cultivated over time, and everyone must begin in whatever state of mind they already happen to be. - Dale S. Wright, “The Bodhisattva’s Gift”
When the best things are not possible, the best may be made of those that are. - Richard Hooker
The perfect is often the enemy of the good. - anon
Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond. - Robin Wall Kimmerer
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. - Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”
When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom. - John Gray, “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus”
It is impossible to bring more into your life if you are feeling ungrateful about what you have. - Rhonda Byrne, “The Secret”
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal. - Napoleon Hill, “Think and Grow Rich”
We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. - Rick Warren, “The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?”
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. - Thích Nhất Hạnh
Don’t believe every worried thought you have. Worried thoughts are notoriously inaccurate. - Renee Jain, author
Rule number one is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it's all small stuff. - Robert Eliot, medical doctor and author
If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Many of us feel stressed and overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but too little of what strengthens us. - Marcus Buckingham, author
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. - Jon Kabat-Zinn, author and professor
I avoid any belief that steals my capacity to wonder, to question, whether it be theist or atheist.
And I think part of what it means to wonder, to question, is to marvel at how far the mystery of the universe exceeds my ability to comprehend it. - James Rocklyn
Pathological religious and political belief systems are based on our natural fear of uncertainty. So we should be putting more effort into skilling ourselves in maintaining equanimity in the face of uncertainty. - Jonathan Fields
Just think happy thoughts and you’ll fly. - J.M. Barrie, “Peter Pan”
Choose the positive. You have a choice. You are the master of your attitude. Choose the positive, the constructive. - Bruce Lee
Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you. -Mary Lou Retton, Olympic gymnast
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. - Colin Powell, U.S. politician
The choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself. - Oprah Winfrey
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. - Mark Twain
Joy and gratitude kind of feed on each other. We call it a cycle of virtue. - Philip Watkins
We must believe that we are gifted for something. - Marie Curie
Try to think of that flower without the soil from which it grows, without the sunlight that helps it grow and illuminates it, without the very space in which it stands, or without the particular time in which it is there. Suddenly you no longer have a flower at all. - Filip Holm, “Emptiness Explained”
The art of deep seeing makes gratitude possible. And it is the art of gratitude that makes joy possible. - Ann Voskamp
Sometimes we have to use diplomacy or deflection to work with our wily mind. Sometimes we have to be our own cheerleaders, other times tough taskmasters. The most important thing is to watch and respond. - Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “Switching Off Unskillful Thoughts”
Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy. - Mark Coleman, “A Breath of Fresh Air”
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. - Albert Einstein
A teacher comes, they say, when you are ready. And if you ignore its presence, it will speak to you more loudly. But you have to be quiet to hear. - Robin Wall Kimmerer
We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. - Helen Keller
Our capacity to meet and dissolve habits is awakened and sustained by applying active capacities to “go beyond”—generosity, ethical conduct, patient endurance, diligence, contemplative cultivation, and discerning wisdom. - Steven D. Goodman, “The Spiritual Work of a Worldly Life”
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. - Truman Capote
The best way to lift one’s self up is to help someone else. - Booker T. Washington
A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living. - Virginia Woolf
Awareness itself is the primary currency of the human condition, and as such it deserves to be spent carefully. - Andrew Olendzki, “Busy Signal”
The gift within the gift of any given moment is opportunity. - Br. David Steindl-Rast
The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. - Einstein
If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else. - Marvin Gaye
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. - Vincent van Gogh
All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today. - Proverb
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela
He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing. - Epicurus
Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other. - Jane Goodall
We are always seeking something from the outside and forgetting that our fundamental well-being and strength depend on how we relate to our own minds. - Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Old Relationships, New Possibilities”
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. - Rachel Carson
Creativity takes courage. - Henri Matisse
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. - Henry David Thoreau
We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the Earth we share. - Maya Angelou
Going down swinging is central to the culture of repair. You have to be willing to try. - Scott Gilbertson
An elevator can never break, it can only become stairs. Graceful degradation (is a good thing)-- elegant handling of failures. - Scott Gilbertson
The continuous exchange of commodities makes for all the sweetness, gentleness and softness of life. - Thamas Savary
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. - anon
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. - Senator Patrick Moynihan
Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast. - William Shakespeare
A curious, connected mind is poised for insight. This is also the mind that is in awe of this fathomless universe, that can read patterns, make choices, play with language, and use concepts while knowing that the map is not the territory. - Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, “Finding Freedom”
Mastery lies not merely in stilling the mind, but in directing it towards whatever point we desire, in allowing it to be active as far as we wish, in using it to fulfill our purpose, in causing it to be still when we want to still it. He who has come to this has created his heaven within himself; he has no need to wait for a heaven in the hereafter, for he has produced it within his own mind now. - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Making other people happy is a superhappiness. - Muhammad Yunus
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. - Harry Truman
Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. - Joanna Macy
The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. - Esther Perel
Laughter helps you put everything into perspective. - Jim Henson
You exist only in what you do. - Federico Fellini
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. - John O'Donohue
Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. - Quintus Sertorius
Come quickly – as soon as these blossoms open, they fall. This world exists as a sheen of dew on flowers. - Izumi Shikibu
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. - Wayne Dyer
A lot of good things don't get made because of too much thinking. - Agnes Martin
Death can come at any minute, in any way. We do not know what is in store tomorrow, or, whether there is a tomorrow, or even a tonight! But still, we have the golden present. Now we are alive and kicking. What should we do now? Love all, serve all. - Sri Swami Satchidananda
Precision beats power, and timing beats speed. - Conor McGregor, UFC champ
Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. - David Whyte
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. - Anne Lamott
We can place the self between our ears and have it looking out from our eyes, or we can widen it to include the air we breathe, or at other moments we can cast its boundaries farther to include the oxygen-giving trees and plankton, our external lungs, and beyond them the web of life in which they are sustained. - Joanna Macy, “Positive Disintegration”
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. - Simone Weil
Discipline morphs into habit. - Twyla Tharp
The environment we create will determine what prevails. In other words, what we nurture and encourage wins. - Jane Goodall
***************** as of 7/9/23
