People leave their Breath

What we are told as children is that when we walk on the Earth people leave their breath wherever they go. So wherever we walk, that particular spot on the Earth never forgets us, and when we go back to these places, we know that the people who have lived there are in some way still there, and that we can actually partake of their breath and their spirit.
Rina Swentzell, Santa Clara Pueblo

Vows

All the true vows are secret vows. The ones we speak out loud are the ones we break. There is only one life you can call your own and a thousand others you can call by any name you want. Hold to the truth you make every day with your own body,
don't turn your face away. Hold to your own truth at the center of the image you were born with. Those who do not understand their destiny will never understand the friends they have made nor the work they have chosen nor the one life that waits beyond all the others. By the lake in the wood in the shadows you can whisper that truth to the quiet reflection you see in the water. Whatever you hear from the water, remember, it wants you to carry the sound of its truth on your lips. Remember, in this place no one can hear you and out of the silence you can make a promise it will kill you to break, that way you'll find what is real and what is not. I know what I am saying. Time almost forsook me and I looked again. Seeing my reflection I broke a promise and spoke for the first time after all these years in my own voice, before it was too late to turn my face again.
David Whyte

The Sutra on Loving Kindness

"Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings:
radiating kindness over the entire world spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desires, is not born again into this world."
- From the Metta Sutra ~ The Sutra on Lovingkindness ~ from the Buddha

Glorious Destiny

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.
Father Thpmas Merton

Presence

"We convince by our presence"
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

What Vistas

What vistas might we see if we were to understand the full power of the human mind? The human consciousness may prove the most inspiring frontier in our history, an endless wellspring of knowledge, and our means of liberation from all limitation. If we can find ways to awaken the full power of awareness, we could enter a new phase of human evolution and revitalize ourselves and our world. There is in all visible things ... a hidden wholeness. The world will be balanced when we are balanced.
Tarthang Tulku

Our task

Our task is not to seek for love, but to find out the barriers within ourselves that we may have built against it.
Rumi

This is the Ultimate.

We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away. Men honor what lies within the sphere of our knowledge, but do not realize how dependent we are on what lies beyond it. Flow with whatever may happen and let our minds be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever we are doing. This is the ultimate.
Zuangzhi

The Edge of Chaos

Just preceding the creation of new forms there is a bewildering variety of complexity ... almost to the state of chaos before a new and finer organization takes place. This state has been described as a no man's land where chaos and stability pull in opposite directions. At the edge of chaos is an eminently creative or universal consciousness where information has a life of its own.
Valerie Hunt, (Infinite Mind)

Hands Symbolize Human Being-ness

The Haida believe everything is a human being. In the spirit world, all creatures look human. Creatures only put on their cause-and-effect masks when they are in this world, forming a giant puzzle of images which are all interconnected. The interconnections draw people “in.” Hands appearing in Haida creature carvings symbolize a creature’s human being-ness.

A Man Who Lives

"A man who lives, not by what he loves but what he hates, is a sick man"
Archibald MacLeish

Asking why

Millions saw apples fall from trees
Newton asked why ..

Waiting until God is Heard

"As my prayers became more attentive and inward I had less and less to say. I finally became completely silent. I started to listen-which is even further removed from speaking. I first thought that prayer entailed speaking. I then learnt that prayer is hearing, not merely being silent. That is how it is. To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent, and waiting until God is heard."
-- Soren Kierkegaard

Dual Nature of Self

There is the dual nature of self: The incomplete self and the complete self... As humans, we are seeing from the perspective of the incomplete self. This incomplete self is undoubtedly very important. But if we attach to this incomplete self, although this incomplete self is important, then we’ll never be able to experience the complete self. We Zen people say, if you believe in God, this complete self means the same thing as God. That is it shares the same standpoint as God.
Joshu Sasaki Roshi

Little things

Realize that little things lead to bigger things. That's what Seeds is all about. And this wonderful parable in the New Testament: the sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don't grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don't grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousand fold. Who knows where some good little thing that we've done may bring results years later that we never dreamed of.
Pete Seeger

Common Source

Each and every being in the universe returns to the common source, the Intelligence of Being. Returning to the source is serenity. Serenity means 'having a sense of Being.' When we don't realize the source, we stumble, confused, with a 'why me?' attitude. When we realize where we come from, we naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted, dignified, integrated -- whole. When we realize where we come from, we know where we are going.

The Only Path to Serenity.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.
Lao Tse (trans. Steven Mitchell)