“Letting go takes a lot of courage sometimes. But once you let go, happiness comes very quickly. You won’t have to go around searching for it.”
“You see, love is one. Love is the whole. Love is an endless sea that you fall into. And once you fall into it, you can’t fall out. It’s not something you do. It’s something that is done to you, and all you can do is let go.”
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
“People often ask me how long they should pray, and I say, “As long as it takes you to get to yes.” If your heart and emotions are still saying “No!” to the moment right in front of you, don’t leave your place of prayer until you find “Yes,” until the flow begins to happen and the constriction (which often feels like pettiness) begins to lose its hold on you. Then you’re abiding in a place of abundance where you know there’s more than enough of you left over, and you don’t need to be stingy, guarded, or hold on to even minor grudges. You can let a quiet love flow; you can let grace happen—to you and through you—toward all the world around you.
”
“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”
“All happiness comes from awareness. The more we are conscious, the deeper the joy. Acceptance of pain, non-resistance, courage and endurance; these open deep and perennial sources of real happiness; true bliss. ”
“Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”
“Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth. ”
“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. ”
“Surely, life is not merely a job, an occupation; life is something extraordinarily wide and profound, it is a great mystery, a vast realm in which we function as human beings. ”
“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspaper that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. ”
“In our bodies, in this moment, there live the seed impulses of the change and spiritual growth we seek, and to awaken them we must bring our awareness into the body, into the here and now. ”
“Pay no attention [to your thoughts]. Don’t fight them. Just do nothing about them, let them be, whatever they are. Your very fighting them gives them life. Just disregard. Look through. You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. Stop your routine of acquisitiveness, your habit of looking for results and the freedom of the universe is yours. ”
For your Thanksgiving day reading pleasure:
Mastering Gratitude
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
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“I myself stand in need of the arms of my own kindness. ”
“The beginning of wisdom comes from the capacity to look at what is. ”
“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age, forever.
”
Loving Kindness
We all need to practice being kind, particularly to ourselves. It is only when we first reconnect with the infinite love that is our ground of being that we can extend that love to others through nonviolent actions. When we remember that we are love, we can truly wish even our enemies well. The Buddhist practice of metta, loving kindness, is a wonderful way to grow kindness for yourself and for others.
Begin by sitting in silence and finding the place of loving kindness within you. Then speak the following statements aloud:
May I be free from inner and outer harm and danger. May I be safe and protected.
May I be free of mental suffering or distress.
May I be happy.
May I be free of physical pain and suffering.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I be able to live in this world happily, peacefully, joyfully, with ease.
Repeat these affirmations as many times as you wish. When you are ready, replace the "I" in each statement with someone else's name. You might follow the sequence from the maitri (another word for loving kindness) practice I introduced a few weeks ago, gradually widening the flow of love to include: a beloved, a friend, an acquaintance, someone who has hurt you, and finally the whole universe.
“A mind that has come to the stillness of wisdom shall know being, shall know what it is to love. Love is neither personal nor impersonal. Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity; it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.”