“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” — Meister Eckhart (via samsaranmusing)
(via catherinewillis)
“In the beginning, spirituality is a seeking practice. We seek peace, we seek joy, we seek wisdom, we seek awakening, we seek self betterment. Farther down the road, the realization comes that we already are the peace and joy and wisdom and awakening and self betterment that we seek. At that point, spirituality becomes what it is… Not a practice of seeking anything. But a practice of uncovering what was there inside you all along. You already are the light at the end of the tunnel. You already are the wisdom, you already are the peace, you already are the joy. You already are awakened, you already are perfect. All that’s left is for you to discover that you are.” — Teal Scott (via emotional-algebra)
“Nirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isn’t watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life.” — Jack Kornfield, “The Wise Heart” (via tricycle-tumbles)
(via tricycle-tumbles)
“How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.” — Thomas Moore (via emotional-algebra)
“I think this search does not lead to complacent satisfaction that we know the answer, not an arrogant sense that the answer is before us and we need do only one more experiment to find it out. It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us.” — Carl Sagan (via stillcuriosity)
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (via zeitvox)
(Source: quotablebookquotes, via journalofanobody)
“I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.” — Anna Kamienska, from A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook, translated by Clare Cavanagh (Thank you, A Writer’s Ruminations)
(via journalofanobody)
“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti (via emotional-algebra)
“Though they were not meditators or very religious in their own right, they taught me very fundamental Buddhist principles simply by way of their conduct in everyday life. Like the baby bird, I instinctively followed their glide. By their example, and not by their command, I learned truthfulness, patience, generosity and unconditional love. Throughout my life, they have been unfailing examples of these and other virtues. And as any good Buddhist will profess, these virtues constitute the very foundation of the Buddha’s teaching. Later, when I was in my early twenties, I recall someone asking me how she could convince her young children to become interested in the Dhamma. She seemed keen to uncover what sneaky tactic my parents had employed to manipulate me into going to the temple. I remember suggesting that her best bet would be to, quite simply, be a true example of the Buddha’s teachings herself - to give her children the foundations of virtue and love and then let them find their own wings. I vaguely remember she was not too satisfied with my response. It’s not so easy, after all, to really practice what we preach.” — A snippet from a beautiful and broad reflection by a renunciant in the Thai Forest Tradition on gratitude for her parents, for her teacher, for the opportunity to practice, and for the Dhamma itself. Read more here » Ehipassiko: To Honour the Worthy Ones. (via sharanam)
(via sharanam)
“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.” — Henry Miller (via kateoplis)
(via significances)