The greatest trap in life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection, doubting who we truly are. Success, popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions.
Henri Nouwen
I would say to young people a number of things. Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we can do — every one — our share to redeem the world despite of all absurdities and all the frustration and all disappointments. And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live life as it if were a work of art. You’re not a machine. When you are young, start working on this great work of art called your own existence.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
In our actual experience of life, our life is not plural, not only plural, but also singular. Each one of us are independent and dependent. We…after some years we will die. That will be the end of our life but if we think that is our end of life, that is wrong understanding. And if we think we do not die, that is also wrong understanding: we die and we do not die and that is right understanding.
Suzuki Roshi, Lecture on posture
photo Ian Capper
A flower falls, even though we love it;
a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
Dogen
photo: pixie from he
It is easy enough to see that all through our lives we are faced with the task of reconciling opposites
which, in logical thought, cannot be reconciled
E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
photo: pjposullivan
