To love someone is not first of all to do things for them,
but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude:
‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.’
Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community
God comes to us disguised as our life.
Richard Rohr
Those who gathered yesterday to see the sun rise at the burial tomb in Newgrange were disappointed, as the morning was cloudy, overcast and rainy. No sign of the sun, which in ancient times may have been quite frightening. A good lesson for us on the confidence we keep inside despite our changing moods.
The sun doesn’t stop shining because some of us are blind.
The birds don’t stop singing because some of us are deaf.
The heart doesn’t stop loving because some of us are afraid.
What lets the flower in the forest bloom though no one is watching?
Mark Nepo, Authority of Being
A great person is one who has not lost the heart of a child.
Mencius, 372 – 289 BC, Chinese Philosopher
Living in a world focused on what is outside us, and not looking within, we are taught from a young age that we need to become something more than we are right now. We are encouraged to always be doing: we must learn; we must buy; we must acquire and achieve. And for absolute certain we must become better than we are right now just sitting here doing nothing. The Buddha taught the opposite. He said that by learning to let the mind be, just as it is right now, all our good qualities can unfold from within.
Heidi Koppl, Be like a Goldsmith
When you are identified with your mind, you cannot be very intelligent because you become identified with an instrument, you become confined by the instrument and its limitations. So, use the mind, but don’t become it . . . The mind is a beautiful machine. If you can use it, it will serve you; if you cannot use it and it starts using you, it is destructive, it is dangerous. It is bound to take you . . . into some suffering and misery . . . Mind cannot see; it can only go on repeating that which has been fed into it. It is like a computer…Remain the master so that you can use it; otherwise it starts directing you.
Osho, New Man for the New Millennium
