Knowing when to let go

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Don’t push the river,

it flows by itself.

Chinese Proverb

Sunday Quote: Setting aside time

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Who ever becomes a good rider by talking about horses?

If you wish to embody the Tao,

stop chattering and start practicing.

The Huahujing, attributed to Lao Tzu.

Coming home to your own truth

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You have to start seeing yourself as your truthful friends see you.

As long as you remain blind to your own truth, you keep putting yourself down and referring to everyone else as better, holier, and more loved than you are. You look up to everyone in whom you see goodness, beauty, and love because you do not see any of these qualities in yourself. As a result, you begin leaning on others without realizing that you have everything you need to stand on your own feet.

Henri Nouwen, Inner Voice of Love

All make mistakes

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I often think of the way the Dakotah Indians responded to a small wrong. When, for example, a young person walked between an elder and the fire – an act of profound impoliteness in their culture – the young person said, simply, “Mistake”. It was an honest acknowledgement of an error of judgment, devoid of any self-recrimination or self-diminution. All present nodded in assent, and life went on.

How healthy such an attitude seems. We all commit mistakes in judgment and we all need forgiveness. If we had the option of making a simple acknowledgement of our mistake and then going on with affairs, how much clearer and gentler life would be. And how healthier would our own hearts be if we looked on the injuries caused us by others as  simply the mistake of human beings who, like us, are struggling to get by in a complex and mysterious world.

Kent Nerburn, Make me an Instrument of Your Peace

Our choices

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In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control.

Where will I find good and bad?

In me, in my choices.

Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher, 55 – 135

Stop comparing

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The power of life that is buried deep inside you will never rise up

until you have become convinced that you’re walking the only path open for you

Kosho Uchiyama, Soto Zen priest, 1912 – 1998