Since there is nothing but just this moment
The time-being
is all the time there is.
Dogen, 1200 – 1253, Buddhist priest and writer, founder of the Soto school of Zen, Shōbōgenzō
Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into it and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route of becoming.
All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the tough core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in your world, and to come into your own.
Difficulty is always a school, though learning is optional.
Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby
I think of the past twenty years,
when I used to walk home quietly
from Kuo-ch’ing,
All the people in the Kuo-ch’ing monastery –
would say, “Hanshan is an idiot.”
“Am I really an idiot:” I reflected.
But my reflections failed to solve the question:
for I myself do not know who the self is,
So how can others know who I am?
Hanshan, 9th century, Chinese Buddhist/Taoist poet
It’s madness to hate all roses because you got scratched with one thorn, to give up all dreams because one of them didn’t come true, to give up all attempts because one of them failed. …..
There will always be another opportunity, another friend, another love, a new strength. For every end, there is always a new beginning….. And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince