If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
Paolo Coelho, The Alchemist
What troubles us
All flows through us
The sublime peace of the Tao [is] something we can all experience by . . . coming into accord with how things actually are—what Tibetan Buddhists call the natural state. Rather than trying to build skyscrapers to reach heaven and bridges to cross the raging river of samsara to reach the so-called other shore of nirvana, we could realize that it all flows right through us right now and there’s nowhere to go, nothing to get, and all is perfect as it is. This deep inner knowing has a lot to do with trust and letting be; there is nirvanic peace in things just as they are.
Lama Surya Das in Derek Lin, Tao Te Ching: Annotated and Explained
Sunday Quote: worth
Your self-worth is not found inside the minds of other people.
Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Different channels
Recently, one friend asked me, “How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn’t natural.” I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Smile
Wait
“Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait ….. When action is needed, light will come.
J.I. Parker, 1926 – 2020 Canadian evangelical theologian, cleric and writer
Never imitate
Insist on yourself; never imitate.
Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation;
but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mindfulbalance 