P. Lyn

“Acknowledging that we are all churned up is the first and most difficult step in any practice. Without compassionate recognition that we are stuck, it’s impossible to liberate ourselves from confusion. ‘Doing something different’ is anything that interrupts our ancient habit of indulging in our emotions. We do anything to cut the strong tendency to spin out… Anything that’s non-habitual will do—even sing and dance or run around the block. We do anything that doesn’t reinforce our crippling habits. The third most difficult practice is to then remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.”
― Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

“I once went to report on a village in Russia, a community of
artists who were forced to flee the cities! I'd heard that paintings hung everywhere! I heard
you couldn't see the walls through all of the paintings! They'd painted the ceilings, the 82
plates, the windows, the lampshades! Was it an act of rebellion! An act of expression!
Were the paintings good, or was that beside the point! I needed to see it for myself, and I
needed to tell the world about it! I used to live for reporting like that! Stalin found out
about the community and sent his thugs in, just a few days before I got there, to break all
of their arms! That was worse than killing them! It was a horrible sight, Oskar: their arms
in crude splints, straight in front of them like zombies! They couldn't feed themselves, because they couldn't get their hands to their mouths! So you know what they did!'
'They starved?'
'They fed each other! That's the difference between heaven and hell! In hell we starve! In
heaven we feed each other!”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling...”
― Aldous Huxley, Island

“Many people have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary