To be interested in the changing seasons
is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
George Santayana
Category: Make the most of life
Forgetting ourselves
No despair of ours can alter the reality of things,
or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.
Indeed we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us,
for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget
ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the
general dance.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Leaving things alone
The only way out of this struggle is to leave our mind alone, to fully accept the mind that we have, anger, dualisms and all. And when we no longer judge ourselves or try to emotionally neuter ourselves, the internal conflicts and tensions gradually begin to quiet down. We might say this is the most basic psychological insight: I cannot escape myself, so I have to come to terms with the mind that I have.
Barry Magid, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness
When we come to it
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
.
Maya Angelou, A Brave and Startling Truth
Looking inside
A human being has so many skins inside,
covering the depths of the heart.
We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves!
Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or a bear’s,
cover the soul.
Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
Meister Eckhart
On the journey
Four Rules For Life
Show up.
Pay attention.
Tell the truth.
Don’t be attached to the results.
Angeles Arrien, 1940 – April 24, 2014
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