I asked the poet Tony Hoagland what he thought about fear. He said fear was the ghost of an experience: we fear the recurrence of a pain we once felt, and in this way fear is like a hangover. The memory of our pain is a pain unto itself, and thus feeds our fear like a foyer with mirrors on both sides.
And then he quoted Auden: “And ghosts must do again/What gives them pain.”
Mary Ruefle, On Fear
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.
Thích Nhất Hạnh
When someone is seeking, said Siddartha, It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal.
Seeking means: to have a goal;
but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.
You are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery.
There is always more mystery.
Anaïs Nin
The shape of each soul is different.
There is a secret destiny for each person.
We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. The false burdens fall away. We come into rhythm with ourselves. If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. The divine has such passionate creativity and instinct for the fully inhabited life. Our clay shape gradually learns to walk beautifully on this magnificent earth.
John O’Donohue, Anam Cara
Focus not on the rudeness of others,
not on what they’ve done or left undone,
but on what you have and haven’t done
yourself.
Dhammapada, 4
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