Ahmed

“As therapists, we are in the business of listening to people's stories, and listening for their feelings. We somehow know intuitively, or are taught along the way, that the medium of "the talking cure" involves having people move awareness along a gradient within them from unthought/unknown, to barely detectable, to feelable, to speakable, to elaborate-able, linkable, and ultimately transformable; from unconscious to conscious, if you will. We are taught and probably know from our own experience that there is something powerfully freeing about birthing a formerly unworded feeling into words. When we're truly scared, or aggrieved, or angered or even surprised, it helps to name the thing. It helps because an emotional experience seems to hold part of our being hostage in some kind of way until we've been able to move it into worded symbols for ourselves, usually by talking to another human being about the experience.”
― Teri Quatman, Essential Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: An Acquired Art

“There may be no advice given to young creative types more often than "Stay hungry." Hunger is encouraged by commencement speakers, noted as a requirement in job listings, looked back on fondly by one-time strivers now on the far side of their golden years. Hunger is everything because its nothing--not yet-- just raw promise, one lack that may eclipse others: talent, pedigree, luck. Like sharks, the hungry must always keep moving, hunting, killing, "killing it." We assure the hungry that they are poised to go far--over and beyond the bodies of the frightened and dull and easily sated. At the end of the day they will stand smiling, jaws bloodied, still wanting more.

When we talk about hunger this way -- as shorthand for a certain noble stripe of ambition--we tend to obscure its roots in our bodies, our biology. Even in this strange sliver of the world where food is ample to the point of thread, hunger remains a real, animal sensation. Every few hours our bodies rumble with discomfort and we are expected to soothe them, whether or not we understand or trust the nature of their want. Perhaps this hunger is honest, or perhaps it's just that you smelled the cookies baking or you got stood up or cut off or side-eyed or just happened to see the clock hit eleven thirty, a time you were hungry before. Hunger confuses the needs of our minds with the needs of our bellies. Hunger lies like a child.

But then, whether or not you give into your hunger, even if you give it nothing at all, it always slinks away; but then, it always returns. It is a fundamental condition. We seem to forget this when we talk about the appetites of the young. "Stay hungry," we tell them, as if they have been drafted into some cannibal army and must devour their own to have any hope of survival. "Stay hungry," we tell them, as if they have any choice at all.”
― Manjula Martin, Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living

“One day the Buddha was sistting with some of his monks in the woods. They had just come back from an almsround and were ready to share a mindful lunch together. A farmer passed by, looking distraught.

He asked the Buddha, "Monks, have you seen some cows going by here?"
"What cows?" the Buddha responded.
"Well," the man said, "I have four cows and I don't know why, but this morning they all ran aay. I also have two acres of sesame. This year the insects ate the entire crop. I have lost everything: my harvest and my cows. I feel like killing myself."
The Buddha said, "Dear friend, we have been sitting here almost an hour and we have not seen any cows passing by. Maybe you should go and lookin the other direction."

When the farmer was gone, the Buddha looked at his friends and smiled knowingly. "Dear friends, you are very lucky," he said. "You don't have any cows to lose.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

“The miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on Earth. Walk in such a way that you become fully alive and joy and happiness are possible. That is the miracle that everyone can perform.... If you have mindfulness, concentration, and insight then every step you make on this Earth is performing a miracle.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh