In Shakespeare’s King Lear Act IV, the King asks Gloucester how he was so good at seeing “how this world goes?” And Gloucester, who was blind, answers:
“I see it feelingly.”
On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince
[Even some] lovely people feel that their real identity is working on themselves, and some work on themselves with such harshness. Like a demented gardener who won’t let the soil settle for anything to grow, they keep raking, tearing away the nurturing clay from their own heart, then they’re surprised that they feel so empty and vacant. Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do.
John O’Donoghue, Anam Chara
The place God calls you to
is the place where your deep gladness
and the world’s deep hunger meet
Frederick Buechner, born 1926, American writer, preacher, and theologian
You are floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever.
If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience.
Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
We all carry these interior lists and shoulds…
Dropping all we carry – all our preconceptions, our interior lists of the ways we’ve failed and the ways we’ve been wronged, all the secret burdens we work at maintaining – dropping all regret and expectations lets our mentality die. Dropping all we have constructed as imperative allows us to be born again into the simplicity of spirit that arises from unencumbered being
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures:
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 67, Stephen Mitchell trans,
Mindfulbalance 