Bryn

“A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“do we have a compulsion to devise elaborate ideas about our place in the universe? Why do we experience beauty as transcendent yet somehow impermanent and corrupted, and suffering as somehow wrong, rather than simply a part of the natural order? Why do the advocates of each new system of justice believe they can devise legal codes that will achieve a fully just social order, even though every previous system of justice has failed?”
― David Skeel, True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World

“The rare opportunity to exist, no matter how brief, is worth the pain left in the wake of its disappearance.”
― Chris Matakas, #Human: Learning To Live In Modern Times

“When we are angry, what do we usually do? We shout, scream, and try to blame someone else for our problems. But looking at anger with the eyes of impermanence, we can stop and breathe. Angry at each other in the ultimate dimension, we close our eyes and look deeply. We try to see three hundred years into the future. What will you be like? What will I be like? Where will you be? Where will I be? We need only to breathe in and out, look at our future and at the other person's future.

Looking at the future, we see that the other person is very precious to us. When we know we can lose them at any moment, we are no longer angry. We want to embrace her or him and say: "How wonderful, you are still alive. I am so happy. How could I be angry with you? Both of us have to die someday, and while we are still alive and together it is foolish to be angry at each other."

The reason we are foolish enough to make ourselves suffer and make the other person suffer is that we forget that we and the other person are impermanent. Someday when we die we will lose all our possessions, our power, our family, everything. Our freedom, peace, and joy in the present moment is the most important thing we have.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life