Alive
The meaning of life
is just to be alive.
It is so plain and so obvious
and so simple.
And yet, everybody rushes around
in a great panic
as if it were necessary
to achieve something
beyond themselves.
~Alan Watts
(1915-1973, British Zen Buddhist Teacher)
Awareness
Awareness is nothing special.
It’s natural.
In fact, it may be
the most natural—
the only natural thing there is.
~Andrew Olendzki
(Director at the Barre Center
for Buddhist Studies,
Editor of Insight Journal)
Thoughts
Your thoughts are the atmosphere
in which you move.
So if you fight your thoughts,
you are in a battle zone.
Just add God to your thoughts.
Just worry in peace;
worry in happiness.
Gently drop each worry
into the still lake of the Divine.
~Hugh Prather
(1938 – 2010, author, minister, counselor)
Love is the Root
Love is at the root of everything,
all learning, all parenting,
all relationships.
Love or the lack of it.
~Fred Rogers
(1928 to 2003, Minister, Educator,
Television Host and Good Neighbor)
Humility
The life worth living is life in the Spirit.
Its basis is humility.
We should be reduced to a cipher
and God becomes all.
The truly humble are the truly happy.
For want of humility,
men and women are leading
an unbearable, miserable life.
All this misery is from within.
It is not a change in our circumstances,
but deliverance from
the thralldom of the self,
the petty ego that sits a tyrant,
robbing us of the bliss
that is our heritage as Children of God.
We are, as it were, in a cage
of self-centeredness,
and until this prison is opened
by the key of humility,
the swan bird of the soul
is to free and cannot swim
to the regions of radiance and joy.
When the light of humility dawns on the soul,
the darkness of selfishness disappears
and the soul no longer lives for itself,
but for God.
The soul loses itself in God.,
lives in God, and is transformed into God.
This is the alchemy of humility.
It transforms the lowest into the Highest.
~Sant Kirpal Singh Ji Maharaj
(1894-1974 Mystic Adept, Spiritual Teacher,
Organizer of World Conference on Unity of Man,
President of the World Fellowship of Religions,
and Sant Satguru of Surat Shabd Yoga)
Choice
Do I prefer to grow up
and relate to life directly,
or do I choose to live
and die in fear?
~Pema Chodron
(1936 to pres., Buddhist Teacher)
Present Moment
The present moment
is not defined solely
by letting go of past and future,
nor by accepting and appreciating
what arises right now,
but by choosing
in this very moment
how we make sense
of the world.
~Jack Petranker
(Attorney and Educator,
Director of the Mangalam Research Center
for Buddhist Languages)
