You cannot rely on anything. Things change. OK, so this is where your choices begin. We can’t escape life’s essential problems, but we can change our understanding about them. We can practice reframing, generosity, and gratitude. The evanescence of things is the real reason you enjoy your life
Lewis Richmond, Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser
To nourish the soul is to rest in being. Our greatest unhappiness comes from our longing. Our greatest peace comes from our being. But we stay rooted in the easy and convenient. We eliminate as much pain as we can from our lives and end up painted into a corner we call safety. Safety keeps you numb and dead. People are caught by surprise when it is time to die. They have allowed themselves to live so little.
Stephen Levine
One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you’re wanting yourself to get better, you won’t. As long as you are oriented toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are. One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is the feeling that the present moment is not good enough. Instead of looking for fruition, we could just try to stay with our open heart and open mind. By entering into this kind of unconditional relationship with ourselves, we can begin to connect with the awake quality that we already have
Pema Chodron
To be human is much more than being born, getting an education, finding the right partner, and getting a pretty house on a nice street, just so that you can sleep, wake, work, go to bed, and do it all over again. It is an invitation to feel everything, to come into direct contact with the strange, beautiful, horrible, and often perfectly ordinary thing we call life…. There is devastation and hopelessness, and there is passion and holy commitment to creating a better future for everyone. There is me writing and you reading and the separation between us, and there is the unity we feel almost immediately when we are reminded that there is love.
Frank Ostaseski
One kind word can warm three winter months
Japanese proverb
In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase.
Rabbi Joshua Herschel
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