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Teach me to do your will, for you, O Lord, are my God.
Let your good spirit guide me in ways that are level and smooth.
In the morning, let me know your love for I put my trust in you.
Make me know the way I should walk; to you I lift up my soul.
-Little Office
Force may subdue, but love gains;
and he that forgives first, wins the laurel.
- William Penn
Faith points us to a deep interconnection to truth that assures us that we can meet any situation and use it for our awakening.
-James Baraz
If you think you can learn the future, you're a damned fool, not a wise man.
You'll be happier not knowing anyhow.
-Cowboy Hãvamãl
If your brother has done wrong and is sorry for it, take him into your company and forgive him seven times in a day.
Yes, and I will tell you, not only seven times but seven times seventy.
Because even with the prophets, when the Holy Spirit was with them, yet a trace of sinfulness was still in them.
- Jesus
Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
- Matthew VII
The road pointed out to you is not a long one;
you do not have to cross the seas or pierce the clouds or climb mountains to meet your God.
Enter into your own soul and you will find him;
for his word is near you;
it is on your lips and in your heart.
Go down deep in your heart until you are stirred to compunction.
- St Bernard
As for those who seek the transcendental Reality,
without name,
without form,
contemplating the Unmanifested
beyond the reach of thought and feeling,
with their senses subdued
and mind serene
and striving for the good of all beings,
they too will verily come to me.
- Krishna
There is certainly no one easy answer for how to be free of suffering,
but our teachers do all they can to guide us.
The main tool,
and the one that embodies both the relative and the absolute,
is the practice of sitting meditation.
The practice described as being completely present.
It allows the space for our neuroses to come to the surface.
It is not a “vacation from irritation.”
-Pema Chödrön
The practice of meditation undoes consciousness by simplifying our experience as we work with the breath.
We could say quite safely that spiritual discipline is not so much a matter of advancement, but undoing what we have created.
-Chögyam Trungpa
One hour devoted to the pursuit of beauty and love is worth a full century of glory given to the frightened weak to the strong.
One hour devoted to mourning and lamenting the stolen equality of the weak is nobler than a century filled with greed and usurpation.
That hour is the root which must flourish.
That hour of meditation, the hour of prayer, and the hour of a new era is good.
The hour is treasured by Eternity as a jewel.
-Kahlil Gibran
Encounter
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.
And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.
That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.
O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.
-Cseskow Milosz
Jesus on the lean donkey,
this is an emblem of how the rational intellect should control the animal-soul.
Let your spirit be strong like Jesus.
If that part becomes weak,
then the worn out-donkey becomes a dragon.
-Rumi
Stray From the Path
The greatest tragedy in life
is to believe yourself a failure
because you do not follow the path
that society demands you march.