Closing out the year

"God is at home... It is we who have gone out for a walk."
-- Meister Eckhart

Least of these

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly, I say to you, as you do to even one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me."
Jesus in Mathew verse 25

Happiness

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
--The Buddha

Otherwise

"Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise."
Diamond Sutra

I thought it was

"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, 'This is certainly not like I thought it was!'"
Rumi

Each tiime ...

"Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for an ideal, acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he (or she) sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples can create a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Robert Kennedy

.... yet doesn't hold on

The great Tao flows everywhere. All things are born from it, yet it doesn't create them. It pours itself into its work, yet it makes no claim. It nourishes infinite worlds, yet it doesn't hold on to them. Since it is merged with all things and hidden in their hearts, it can be called humble. Since all things vanish into it and it alone endures, it can be called great. It isn't aware of its greatness; thus it is truly great.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
- Wendell Berry

The true disease ...

The true disease of our age is the rise of literalism and the corresponding loss of genuine imagination, for literalism reduces the world to fixed ideas and rigid dogmas while isolating people at the extremes of thought and belief.
Michael Mad.

Wisdom Sits in Places

Wisdom can mean many things; however, it is most often applied to social situations and is marked by judgment, reflection, and compassion.
Vivian Clayton

The trick is ...

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
~ Carlos Castaneda

The Answer

"The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the Mystery. If you seek the Mystery instead of the answer,
you'll always be seeking..."
-- Ken Kesey,

Just ain't so.

It’s not what people don’t know that’s the problem, but what they think they know that — —just ain’t so.
Will Rogers

Rapture of Life

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life… I think that what we’re really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive."
Joseph Campbell