Rebel Buddha

"...our freedom is never in question. We're born free. The true nature of our mind is enlightened wisdom and compassion. Our mind is always brilliant awake and aware. Nevertheless, we're often plagued by painful thoughts and the emotional unrest that goes with them. We live in states of confusion and fear from which we see no escape. Our problem is that we don't see who we truly are at the deepest level. We trust the reality we see before our eyes and accept its validity until something comes along-an illness, accident, or disappointment-to disillusion us. Then we might be ready to question our beliefs and start searching for a more meaningful and lasting road to freedom.
On this road, what we free ourselves from is illusion, and what frees us from illusion is the discovery of truth. To make that discovery, we need to enlist the powerful intelligence of our own awake mind and turn it toward our goal of exposing, opposing, and overcoming deception. That is the essence and mission of 'rebel Buddha;: to free us from the illusions we create by ourselves, about ourselves, and from those that masquerade as reality in our cultural and religious institutions."
-- Punlop Rinpoche in his wonderful new book - Rebel Buddha

Universe is Energy

"Since Universe is Energy, part of the process of understanding, at least as I experience it, is to learn to 'see' flows of energy and specificities of energy. Both are necessary. Because, you see, Universe is both Whole and Specific. Western science is beginning to understand this through explorations about particle and wave. Both particle/particularity/specificity of Universe and the wave/flow of Universe were aspects I was encouraged as a child to apprehend and understand. I was asked to 'see' the dancing points of light and then to apprehend the shift from location to flow. Much of shamanic practice has to do with developing the ability to enter and use this shift."

-- Paula Underwood Spensor, describing her childhood training in the Indigenous wisdom of the Oneida tradition.

Global commons

"Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, over-population, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement ... about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot reign in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach that worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence." - Ken Wilber

Great Spirits

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Einstein

When you really look for me

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor synagogues, not in cathedrals; Not in masses, nor kirtan, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly - you will find me in the tiniest house of time. What is God? It is the breath inside the breath.
Kabir

Can't prove, can't explain

"I had an experience I can't prove, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. It was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the Universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precioius we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us, are alone."
Carl Sagan