Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind.
To be happy,
rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.
The Buddha’s Little Instruction Book
Birdsong brings relief to my longing.
I am just as ecstatic as they are, but with nothing to say!
Please, universal soul, practice some song, or something, through me!
Rumi
When you are feeling overwhelmed, you’re trying too hard.
That kind of energy does not help the other person and it does not help you. You should not be too eager to help right away. There are two things, to be and to do. Don’t think too much about to do – to be is first. To be peace. To be joy. And then to do joy, to do happiness – on the basis of being. Being fresh. Being peaceful. Being compassionate. This is the basic practice. It’s like a person sitting at the foot of a tree. The tree does not have to do anything, but the tree is fresh and alive. When you are like that tree, sending out waves of freshness, you help to calm down the suffering in the other person.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Be Beautiful, Be yourself
Despite the fact that advertisers want us to focus on the next big thing and that the stores already have Easter Eggs on their shelves, it is good to maintain the natural, more interior and quiet, rhythms of winter.
Just because someone has invented a clock
doesn’t mean you have to hurry through life.
Russell C. Means, Oglala Sioux American Indian activist
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