Don’t hide love

Don’t hide love.

If you feel it, express it – not to demand that others love you back, but simply to live outwardly the best of what you feel inwardly.

The worst that can happen to your heart is not rejection by another person but failure to act on the love you feel. 

Martha Beck

Ordinary mind

When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.

P’ang Yün (Layman Pang) died 808, famous lay practitioner of Ch’an Buddhism

What matters

All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are
and who you are is where you will be
when death takes you across the river.

John Squadra, 1932 – American artist and poet

Sunday Quote: Stay Here, now

Too much longing:

it separates us

like scent from bread,

rust from iron.

Jane Hirshfield, Sentencings [extract]

The subtle mysteries

Always be joyful, no matter what you are. With happiness you can give a person life. Every day we must deliberately induce in ourselves a buoyant, exuberant attitude toward life. In this manner, we gradually become receptive to the subtle mysteries around us. And if no inspired moments come, we should act as though we have them anyway. If you have no enthusiasm, put up a front. Act enthusiastic, and the feeling will become genuine.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslau 1772- 1810), Founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement.

Become love

If you want to know God,
become love. If you want
to know others, become love.
If you want to know yourself,
become love. And if you want
to know love, forget all you
thought you knew or needed
to know, and become love
.

Meister Eckhart, 1260 – c. 1328, German theologian, philosopher and mystic