Keep a certain distance

As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you.

Don’t bother to brush it off.

Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance.

Having a sense of humor saves you.

Joseph Campbell

not advice

As I grow older, I discover more and more that the greatest gift I have to offer is my own joy of living, my own inner peace, my own silence and solitude, my own sense of well-being.

When I ask myself, “Who helps me the most?” I must answer, “The one who is willing to share his or her life with me.”

Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

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a basic truth

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

Why are you waiting

And we advise you to begin doing it now.

We are not living in eternity.

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.

Let us use it before it is too late

Marie Beynon Ray, died 1969, American journalist and popular self-help writer, The Best Years of Your Life

a willingness

What is required is a willingness to look deeply at one’s present moments

no matter what they hold

in a spirit of generosity , kindness towards oneself

and openness toward what might be possible,

Jon Kabat-Zinn

How to make the most of each day

The fourteenth-century Tibetan teacher Longchenpa talked about our useless and
meaningless focus on the details, getting so caught up we don’t see what is in front of our nose. He said that this useless focus extends moment by moment into a continuum, and days, months, and even whole lives go by. Do you spend your whole time just thinking about things, distracting yourself with your own mind, completely lost in thought? I know this habit so well myself. It is the human predicament.

Pause practice can transform each day of your life. It creates an open doorway to the sacredness of the place in which you find yourself. The vastness, stillness, and magic of
the place will dawn upon you, if you let your mind relax and drop for just a few breaths
the storyline you are working so hard to maintain. If you pause just long enough, you can reconnect with exactly where you are, with the immediacy of your experience.

In any moment you could just listen. In any moment, you could put your full attention
on the immediacy of your experience.
So, what is the most important thing to do with each day? With each morning, each afternoon, each evening?

It is to leave a gap

Pema Chödrön, How to Make the Most of your Day