Justin

“Dualistic thinking is a sickness. Religion is a distortion. Materialism is cruel. Blind spirituality is unreal. Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing, religious robes no more spiritual than work clothes. If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities. Instead, live a quiet and simple life, free of ideas and concepts. Find contentment in the practice of undiscriminating virtue, the only true power. Giving to others selflessly and anonymously, radiating light throughout the world and illuminating your own darknesses, your virtue becomes a sanctuary for yourself and all beings. This is what is meant by embodying the Tao.”
― Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching

“I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING: The book The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers, and the PBS special of the same name. The film Finding Joe is also a good intro to Joey Cambs. Anything by Rob Bell, especially Love Wins and What We Talk About When We Talk About God, and his podcast The RobCast. Anything by Eckhart Tolle, most notably The Power of Now (especially as an audio book) and A New Earth. There are also so many great talks on YouTube. Anything by Richard Rohr, particularly Falling Upward, Everything Belongs, and The Universal Christ, and his audio series The Sermon on the Mount. The podcast The Duncan Trussell Family Hour. Anything by Ram Dass, specifically his audio series Experiments in Truth and Love, Service, Devotion, and the Ultimate Surrender, and his books Grist for the Mill, Polishing the Mirror, Be Love Now, and, when you’re ready, Be Here Now. Also the movies Ram Dass, Going Home; and Dying to Know. Anything by Alan Watts, starting with his audio series You’re It!: On Hiding, Seeking, and Being Found. There’s some amazing content on YouTube as well. And lastly, The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas.”
― Pete Holmes, Comedy Sex God

“The unraveling of our home planet is a mental disorder in which thoughs and feelings are so impaired they have no relationship to external reality. Wild is the opposite. It is when our thoughts, feelings, and actions are exquisitely sensity to our relationship with the living world and each other.”
― Paul Hawken, Carbon: The Book of Life

“Your life is written in indelible ink. There's no going back to erase the past, tweak your mistakes, or fill in missed opportunities. When the moment's over, your fate is sealed.

But if look closer, you notice the ink never really dries on any our experiences. They can change their meaning the longer you look at them.

Klexos.

There are ways of thinking about the past that aren't just nostalgia or regret. A kind of questioning that enriches an experience after the fact. To dwell on the past is to allow fresh context to trickle in over the years, and fill out the picture; to keep the memory alive, and not just as a caricature of itself. So you can look fairly at a painful experience, and call it by its name.

Time is the most powerful force in the universe. It can turn a giant into someone utterly human, just trying to make their way through. Or tell you how you really felt about someone, even if you couldn't at the time. It can put your childhood dreams in context with adult burdens or turn a universal consensus into an embarrassing fad. It can expose cracks in a relationship that once seemed perfect. Or keep a friendship going by thoughts alone, even if you'll never see them again. It can flip your greatest shame into the source of your greatest power, or turn a jolt of pride into something petty, done for the wrong reasons, or make what felt like the end of the world look like a natural part of life.

The past is still mostly a blank page, so we may be doomed to repeat it. But it's still worth looking into if it brings you closer to the truth.

Maybe it's not so bad to dwell in the past, and muddle in the memories, to stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it. Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas. And remember that a work of art is never finished, only abandoned.”
― John Koenig