The first duty of love is to listen
Paul Tillich
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled –
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything – that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
Mary Oliver, The Ponds
If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.
John O’Donoghue
Sometime go outside and sit,
In the evening at sunset,
When there’s a slight breeze that touches your body,
And makes the leaves and the trees move gently.
You’re not trying to do anything, really.
You’re simply allowing yourself to be,
Very open from deep within,
Without holding onto anything whatsoever. Don’t bring something back from the past, from a memory.
Tsogni Rinpoche
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.
Ajahn Chah
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself – if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself – it is very difficult to take care of another person. To love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.
To be a part, that is fulfillment for us:
to be integrated with our solitude into a state that can be shared.
Rilke
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