Love and concern for all are not things some of us are born with and others are not. Rather, they are results of what we do with our minds. We can choose to transform our minds so that they embody love, or we can allow them to develop habits and false conceptions of separation.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
We measure ourselves against others and imagine that the measurement defines the self.
Enkyo Pat O’Hara
We have been raised to fear the yes in ourselves
Audre Lorde, 1934 – 1992, American writer and civil rights activist
When you have no desire, everything is sufficient.
But when always seeking, then a lot of things seem impoverished.
However, plain vegetables can soothe hunger.
A patched robe is enough to cover this bent old body.
Alone, I hike with a deer. Cheerfully I sing with village children.
The stream beneath the cliff cleanses my ears.
The pine on the mountain top fills my heart.
Ryokan, 1758–1831
Emptiness refers to the fact that things are not as solid and real as they seem. something that we hold in our hands might appear completely solid and unchanging, but that’s an illusion. Whatever it may be, it is changing all the time, and when we investigate, we find change and fluidity where before we assumed permanence and solidity. This does not make the phenomenal world nothing; at the same time, its essential nature is not what we usually think it is.
Yongey Mingpur Rinoche, In Love with the World
Our whole spiritual transformation
brings us to the point where we realize
that in our own being,
we are enough.
Ram Dass
Mindfulbalance 