Do not become annoyed when faced with difficulties.
To do so merely adds difficulty to difficulty and further disturbs your mind.
By maintaining a mind of peace and non-opposition, difficulties will naturally fall away
Master Sheng-Yen
Almost every one of Odysseus’s encounters coming home from Troy are losses of some type – his men, his control, his power, his time, his memory, his fame, the boat itself. Falling, losing, failing, transgression and sin are the pattern, I am sorry to report.
Yet they all lead towards home.
In the end, we do not so much reclaim what is lost as discover a significantly new self in and through the process. Until we are led to the limits of our present game plan, and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find the real source, the deep well, or the constantly flowing stream
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
Way back in the ’80s, my guru asked me, “What is stress?” He had never heard of stress because he came from the Himalayas. I told him stress is the perception of threat: physical, emotional and psychological. After a while, he said, “You mean resistance to existence.” And he said, “If you don’t resist existence, you will have flow.” That’s the best advice.
Deepak Chopra in Wall Street Journal, November 2024, Deepak Chopra Doesn’t Believe You’re Too Busy to Meditate
We have to cultivate contentment with what we have.
We really don’t need much. When you know this, the mind settles down.
Cultivate generosity. Delight in giving.
Learn to live lightly.
In this way, we can begin to transform what is negative into what is positive. This is how we start to grow up.
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, No Excuses