Karla

“Happiness is not a science, an art or an outcome. It can't be qualified, procured or consumed. It's not invented, but comes naturally made from mud, honeysuckle, pitted olives, and doting grand dads...it's what we are when we are utterly ourselves in unaffected ease.”
― Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life

“Who was your teacher? He hadn't studied with that teacher; he'd read the books. I didn't know the answer I was looking for when I asked the question, but I do now.
A book may teach, but is not a teacher.
A teacher may find fame, but a teacher is not a celebrity.
A teacher comes from a line of teachers and completes a length of training that he or she freely admits is never complete.
A teacher is rarely found and yet astonishes you with his or her complete availability.
A teacher doesn't ask much of you -- not your life, not your loyalty, and not a high fee for a once-in-a-life-time opportunity.
A teacher waits.”
― Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life

“You don't have to wait for happiness, because there's no time but now to be happy. You don't have to go somewhere else, because there's no place but here to find it. You don't have to do something else, because there's nothing more to it. You don't have to get something else, because everything you already have is enough. You just have to be happy. ...”
― Karen Maezen Miller, Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood

“But we do neither: we never fail, and we never succeed. We are not the designers of our lives. Life is the designer of us. Life is vast and grand, intelligent, clever, and completely unknowable. It always has the last word. It is the last word. Life interrupts us when we are at our most self-assured. Life diverts us when we are hellbent on going elsewhere. Life arrives in a precise and yet unplanned sequence to deliver exactly what we need in order to realize our greatest potential. The delivery is not often what we would choose, and almost never how we intend to satisfy ourselves, because our potential is well beyond our limited, ego-bound choices and self serving intentions.”
― Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life