We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.
It is not that we go out into the world with a capacity to love others greatly. This too we know in ourselves, that our capacity for love is limited. And it has to be completed with the capacity to be loved, to accept love from others, to want to be loved by others, to admit our loneliness and to live with our loneliness because everybody is lonely.
One must never give up hope of becoming better. A person is old only when he refuses to make the effort to change. That stagnant state is the only “old age” I recognize.
You can’t offend the Divine One; its very nature is light, love, compassion, protection, and giving. You can’t make it stop loving you. It’s just like the sun. You can’t make the sun stop shining on you; you can only choose not to look at it. The moment you look, you’ll see it’s there.
Humans are creators of meaning, and finding deep meaning in our experiences is not just another name for spirituality but is also the very shape of human happiness.
When I stopped waiting for something “significant” to happen, and instead began noticing what WAS happening, not what I wished was happening, a series of small miracles occurred.
It is no accident that human beings bury the dead, that we return our parents and loved ones to the earth, for these are our roots. And tending to the roots ensures healthy growth in our own lives. Seeing under the surface is part of the spiritual journey of self-knowledge that leads to God.
When you love, you should not say, “God is in my heart," but rather, “I am in the heart of God.” And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
The scholar, pure and clear of mind, serene and open of heart, should find in everything what nourishes him. But if you want to know where the flowers come from, even the god of spring doesn’t know.
Holy mystery dwells in the living web of life, in which every thing has an interdependent place, and every creature — humans and otherwise — manifests the creative potential of the Great Spirit.
I grew up in Christian fundamentalism, went to hell, came back, became a Presbyterian then a Buddhist Presbyterian, and now I'm a profane Presbyterian Zen Taoist -- not that I'm into labels or anything. Here's what I've learned so far: The more you know, the more you know you don't know.