If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
Paolo Coelho, The Alchemist
What troubles us
Tag: Present moment
Different channels
Recently, one friend asked me, “How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn’t natural.” I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Smile
Never imitate
Insist on yourself; never imitate.
Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation;
but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only gate
Nirvana is this moment seen directly. There is no where else than here. The only gate is now. The only doorway is your own body and mind. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing else to be. There’s no destination. It’s not something to aim for in the afterlife. It’s simply the quality of this moment.
Jane Hirshfield, American poet, in the PBS documentary, The Buddha
Sunday Quote: Remind yourself
Sometimes I go about in pity for myself,
and all the while,
a great wind carries me across the sky
Ojibwe Tribe saying.
Hello to here
It has taken years to continue to live into the truth that if I believe we are from God and for God, then we are from Goodness and for Goodness. To greet sorrow today does not mean that sorrow will be there tomorrow. Happiness comes too, and grief, and tiredness, disappointment, surprise and energy. Chaos and fulfilment will be named as well as delight and despair. This is the truth of being here, wherever here is today. It may not be permanent but it is here. I will probably leave here, and I will probably return. To deny here is to harrow the heart. Hello to here.
Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World
