You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
Thomas Merton
If we are not intentional and mindful in our work, then we are slaves to it and end up feeling alienated and empty. Even people who have to do jobs they don’t like and find meaningless can still be free within them, at least to a certain extent, by reminding themselves, deliberately and often, why they do them. As long as we do our work out of love for those whom we love, we do it for a good reason. Love is the best reason for our labors. Love makes what we do and suffer rise like music, like a soaring line of chant.
David Steindl-Rast (from The Music of Silence)
Self-portrait
To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves… This is our responsibility, yours and mine; because, however small may be the world we live in, if we can bring about a radically different point of view in our daily existence, then perhaps we shall affect the world at large.
J. Krishnamurti
The true nature of mind is only revealed in letting go.
Manjushri (from The Faith to Doubt by Stephen Batchelor)
By oneself evil is done;
By oneself one suffers.
By oneself evil is undone,
No one can purify another.
Dhammapada
The entire universe is your eye, the entire universe is your complete body, the entire universe is your luminescence. In the entire universe, there is no one who is not your own self.
Changsha (from Most Intimate – A Zen Approach to Life’s Challenges by Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara)
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