The most difficult times for many of us
are the ones we give ourselves
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
Year: 2013
False friends
The greatest trap in life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection, doubting who we truly are. Success, popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions.
Henri Nouwen
In the ordinary
One of the monks asked a renowned Forest Ajahn: ‘What’s it like to see things as they really are?’ There was an understandable air of expectation in the room: to ‘see things as they really are’ is the vision of the Awakened Mind. What mystical insight was about to be revealed?
‘It’s ordinary’, said the Ajahn in his customary succinct and matter-of-fact way.
Ajahn Sucitto, Awakening: Nameless and Stopped
A work of art
I would say to young people a number of things. Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can do — every one — our share to redeem the world despite of all absurdities and all the frustration and all disappointments. And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live life as it if were a work of art. You’re not a machine. When you are young, start working on this great work of art called your own existence.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Step by step
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
Heartfulness
“How cruel the whites are: their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by holes. Their eyes have a staring expression. They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something, they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want, we do not understand them, we think that they are mad.”
I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.
“They say they think with their heads,” he replied.
“Why, of course. What do you think with?” I asked him in surprise.
“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart”.
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Conversation with Ochwiay Biano, an elder of the Taos Pueblo Tribe, New Mexico, 1925
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