Category Archives: Spirituality
Yourself
“No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.” ~Ajahn Chah • “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” ~Bob Marley, Redemption Song
Capture the Experience
Excerpted from The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness by Mingyur Rinpoche, ©2008: Gradually I began to recognize how feeble and transitory the thoughts and emotions that had troubled me for years actually were, and how fixating on small problems had turned them into big ones. Just by sitting quietly and …
I pray thee, then
“When you see that beings have fallen, just as you have, into the ocean of existence and are stumbling, unable to walk in a safe direction, because the eye of wisdom– which distinguishes what to adopt and what to discard– for them is closed, is it not better to care for others and to strive …
Then I Walked Outside
Don’t Go Back to Sleep by Rumi For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself. From within, I couldn’t decide what to do. Unable to see, I heard my name being called. Then I walked outside. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask …
Take Care
“We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.” ~Swami Vivekananda
Aimlessness
“The Heart Sutra says that there is ‘nothing to attain.’ We meditate not to attain enlightenment, because enlightenment is already in us. We don’t have to search anywhere. We don’t need a purpose or a goal. We don’t practice in order to obtain some high position. In aimlessness, we see that we do not lack …
Keep On Rollin’ With the Flow
“Get out of the construction business! Stop building bridges across the raging waters of samsaric existence, attempting to reach the ‘far shore,’ nirvana. Better to simply relax, at ease and carefree, in total naturalness, and just go with the primordial flow, however it occurs and happens. And remember this: whether or not you go with …
We Will Surely Meet the Monkey
Excerpted from Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, ©2014: In private interviews, I hear about problems with family members, partners, and employers. When you listen, the problems sound so small. But if you think about that problem again and again, it gets bigger and …
Smile a Lot
“We have to learn to be kinder to ourselves, much more kind. Smile a lot, although nobody is watching you smile. Listen to your own brook, echoing yourself. You can do a good job. In the sitting practice of meditation, when you begin to be still, hundreds of thousands, millions, and billions of thoughts will …
Monsters
“We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds.” ~Pema Chödron
Hoax
Chaz Ebert on the passing of her famous husband, Roger: The one thing people might be surprised about—Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him and he would talk …
Bisy Backson
“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?” ~Greg McKeown
