Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life.
And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem.
Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence.
You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
I find hope in the darkest of days
and focus in the brightest.
I do not judge the universe.
The Dalai Lama
To keep on filling
is not as good as stopping.
Oversharpen a blade,
and the edge will soon lose its keenness.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to lasting calm.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 9
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living.
We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
In the second half of life, you are not making choices as much as you are being guided, taught, and led.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
The Buddha’s first insight was that life is fundamentally unsatisfactory – not because life is flawed,
but because we relate to it in ways that inevitably lead to suffering.
Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
We reduce, concretize, or substantialize experiences or feelings which are., in their very nature, fleeting or evanescent.
In so doing, we define ourselves by our moods and by our thoughts
We do not just let ourselves be happy or sad
For instance, we must be a happy person or a sad one
This is the chronic tendency of the ignorant or deluded mind, to make “things” out of that which is no thing
Mark Epstein
Mindfulbalance 