We seem to get daily reminders as to how our current society – and those who have positions of responsibility in it – seems to have lost its connection to any inner sense of values.
It is no measure of health
to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Complaining is one of the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself….
The ego loves to complain and feel resentful not only about other people but also about situations.
What you can do to a person, you can also do to a situation: make it into an enemy.
The implication is always: this should not be happening;
I don’t want to be here; I don’t want to be doing this; I’m being treated unfairly.
And the ego’s greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
What are we when there is no one doing anything, no one attaining anything, no place to go?
There “is” no place to go.
The whole foundation is already here in each one of us.
It is the same in all of us.
There is only one foundation, which is presence, wholeness, boundless love.
Toni Packer, The Wonder of Presence: And the Way of Meditative Inquiry
In the rhythm of the Christian Tradition, Holy Saturday was a day of waiting, of bare church decoration, of things pared down and distractions minimized.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought. T. S. Eliot
Wise intention and skillful service need to be nourished by periods of quiet and prayer. Every great tradition includes some from of the Sabbath. In the West we inherited the blessing of the Christian and Jewish Sabbath. Muslims have Friday as their holy day, and likewise Hindus and Buddhists renew their vows of simplicity on full moon, new moon, and quarter moon days. When I was young, Massachusetts had Sabbath “Blue Laws” requiring all forms of business to stop on Sundays. But now, one generation later, we have twenty-four-hour supermarkets and twenty-four-hour banking, seven days a week; our consumer society has claimed the right to operate without constraint. This is a recipe for burnout.
Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the heart grows wise on the Spiritual Path
A reflective life means hitting the pause button from time to time. Today marks the start of Holy Week in the Western tradition, the most important week in terms of giving meaning to life.
Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise
Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
By three methods we may learn wisdom:
First, by reflection, which is noblest;
Second, by imitation, which is easiest;
and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius, born 551 B.C.
To listen to the soul is to stop fighting with life – to stop fighting when things fall apart, when they don’t go our way, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty, and to wait.
Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open
