Most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.
Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
In Zen meditation, we learn how to breathe with phrases, inquire of them, take them beyond conventional styles of understanding. We allow thought to arise, but not grasping thought, not being caught up in thought, not driving thought with our fear, desire, our smallness, as we usually do. So that instead of interpreting or explaining the phrases, trying to gain mastery over them, we allow ourselves to feel the phrases deeply, below the level of our conceptual mind.
In one story, Wu is sweeping the ground and Yan says, “Too busy!”
Wu replies, “You should know there’s one who’s not busy.”
This story is telling us that when we think we are busy, that’s just on the surface. The stress we complain about is conceptual and superficial. We can run around and do plenty of things, but when we know who we are and what is actually going on, we don’t need to be stressed out about anything.
Norman Fischer, Phrases and Spaces
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far into the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Technologies of the soul tend to be simple, bodily, slow and related to the heart as much as the mind. Everything around us tells us we should be mechanically sophisticated, electronic, quick, and informational in our expressiveness – an exact antipode to the virtues of the soul. It is no wonder, then, that in an age of telecommunications – which, by the way, literally means “distant connections” – we suffer symptoms of the loss of soul. We are being urged from every side to become efficient rather than intimate.
Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life
Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death.
But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.
“Socrates” in Dan Millman, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
(A huge thanks to Ted Szi for letting me know the correct origin of this quote)
When we walk on the earth with reverence,
beauty will decide to trust us
The rushed heart and arrogant mind
lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.
John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible embrace
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