Thought created all this suffering—and thought itself was not real. Without thought, all was grace—always. It was all blissfully and blatantly simple, yet totally illogical. I sat on that beach, thunderstruck. It was laughable. Whatever you
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“In life, it’s not about how hard you get hit. It’s about how many times you get back up and how hard you’re willing to keep fighting for your dreams.”
― Rudy: My Story
― Rudy: My Story
“Perhaps Nickel was the very afterlife that awaited him, with a White House down the hill and an eternity of oatmeal and an infinite brotherhood of broken boys.”
― The Nickel Boys
― The Nickel Boys
“From this new place lessons come, or perhaps realizations. The first is that most of my adult life I have not been listening fully. I only listened long enough to determine whether the speaker’s ideas matched my own. If they did not, I would stop listening and my mind would race ahead to compose an argument against what I believed the speaker’s idea or position to be, which I would interject at the first opportunity. Giving myself permission not to speak, not to attack some idea or position, also gives me permission to listen fully. Giving myself this permission gives the speaker permission to speak fully their idea or position without fear of rebuttal in a way that I could not have imagined.”
― Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence.
― Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence.
“I fell in love with a fluffy white and black cat that wandered onto the monastery property. She was so beautiful. I took excellent care of her. I used to spend hours pulling the Velcro-like burrs that got stuck in her long fur when she came to visit my hermitage. The monastery eventually decided she was better off living with a neighbor instead of us. That meant I would never see her again. When I heard the news, I became quite sad. The day she was picked up by her new owners and gone for good was one of the hardest days of my training. That night, I sat in meditation. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. When the bell rang to finish my meditation, I asked a question, “How do you let go of someone you love?” The answer that appeared was, “Love everyone.” I’ll never forget the magnitude of that response. My heart opened up beyond its broken capacity to include all of those around me. The feeling was so overwhelming that it was impossible to experience loss. Love everyone.”
― A Shift to Love: Zen Stories and Lessons by Alex Mill
― A Shift to Love: Zen Stories and Lessons by Alex Mill
“THE FOUR TRUTHS OF SUFFERING Over 2,500 years ago, seven weeks after attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha gave his first teaching in the Deer Park outside Varanasi. There he taught the Four Noble Truths. The first is the truth of suffering—not only the kind of suffering that is obvious to the eye, but also the kind, as we have seen, that exists in subtler forms. The second is the truth of the causes of suffering—ignorance that engenders craving, malice, pride, and many other thoughts that poison our lives and those of others. Since these mental poisons can be eliminated, an end to suffering—the third truth—is therefore possible. The fourth truth is the path that turns that potential into reality. The path is the process of using all available means to eliminate the fundamental causes of suffering. In brief, we must: Recognize suffering, Eliminate its source, End it By practicing the path.”
― Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
― Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
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