Time ongoing

"People of today relate to time in a way that is surely unique in our history. The technologies and economic forces unleashed by Industrial Growth Society radically alter our experience of time. It is like being trapped in an ever-shrinking box, in which we race on a treadmill. The economy and its technologies depend on decisions made at lighting speed for short-term goals, cutting us off from nature's rhythms and from the past and future, as well. Marooned in the present, we are progressively blinded to the sheer ongoingness of time. Both the company of our ancestors and the claims of our descendants become less and less real to us....To make the transition to a life-sustaining society ...we need to attune to longer, ecological rhythms and nourish a strong, felt connection with past and future generations..."
Joanna MAcy

There do in fact exist ...

There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers ... even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, and/or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.
Abraham Maslow

Anger

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. (Malachy McCourt)

Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.
(Harriet Lerner)

Mobius Twist

You can learn more about me by what I say about you than by what you say about me, unless, of course, what I say about you is what you say about me.

Natural Course

"No, sitting for hours on end is not necessary. Some people think that the longer you can sit, the wiser you must be. I have seen chickens sit on their nests for days on end! Wisdom comes from being mindful in all postures. Your practice should begin as you awaken in the morning. It should continue until you fail asleep. Don't be concerned about how long you can sit. What is important is only that you keep watchful whether you are working or sitting or. . . Each person has his own natural pace. Some of you will die at age fifty, some at age sixty-five, and some at age ninety. So, too, your practice will not be all identical. Don't think or worry about this. Try to be mindful and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become quieter and quieter in any surroundings. It will become still like a clear forest pool. Then all kinds of wonderful and rare animals will come to drink at the pool. You will see clearly the nature of all things in the world. You will see many wonderful and strange things come and go. But you will be still. Problems will arise and you will see through them immediately."
Ven. Ajahn Chah

A Coeur d'Alene Legend

People had a fire. Wolf had no fire. Wolf and dog were friends. Wolf said to dog. "Go steal a spark from the People." Dog went to the People. They fed him and he forgot to steal the spark for wolf. That’s all.

Activism is like that

"For me to be active in the cause of the people and of the earth and just to be - is to be alive. There is no compartmentalization. It's all one thing. It's not like I just exist to go into a little room and write. People have that image of writers, that that's how we live, but it's not really accurate, not the kind of writing that I do. I know that what I write has a purpose, even if it's just for me, if I'm just trying to lead myself out of a kind of darkness. So it broadens everything, being active in the world. You see the world. It's like, you know, I'm learning to paint now, and what I realize, learning to paint, is that I'm learning to see. And activism is like that. When you are active, and you must know this so well, that the more you are active, the more you see, the more you go to see. You know, you are curious. One thing leads to another thing, and it gets deeper and deeper, too. And there's no end to it."
Alice Walker

It's impossible

"When the heart is completely liberated, it's impossible to deliberately harm another being. It's impossible to act acquisitively. It's impossible to take advantage of another being sexually or use your sense world indulgently. It is simply impossible. You can't lie or use speech in a harmful or deceitful way. It's as if the force of spiritual gravity won't allow it. There's nothing there that could cause you to bend the truth. . . Goodness feels good because the attitude resonates with reality. Lying and harming feel bad because they are dissonant with that reality of what we are. It's as simple as that."
Ajahn Amaro

higher goal

"The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments."
Abraham Joshua Heschel

The power to retell

"Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it . . . and change it as times change, truly are powerless because they cannot think new
thoughts." - Salman Rushdie

Lakota notion

"The Lakota notion of living creatures is that trees, buffalo and man are temporary energy swirls, turbulent patterns...You find that perception registered so many ways in archaic and primitive lore. I say that it is probably the most basic insight into the nature of things, and that our more common, recent Occidental view of the universe as consisting of fixed things is out of the main stream, a deviation from basic human perception."
-- Gary Snyder

the hour of new clarity

"You must give birth to your images. / They are the future waiting to be born...
Fear not the strangeness you feel. / The future must enter you long before it happens.
Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity.
--Rainier Maria Rilke

The "Truths" of Systems Thinking

Today's problems come from yesterday's solutions The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back Behavior grows worse before it grows better The easy way out usually leads back in The cure can be worse than the disease Faster is slower Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space Small changes can produce big results--but the areas of highest leverage are the least obvious

from The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge

The Souls of Women

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of wo/men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe, and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of women."
Black Elk

No words necessary

Some doors

"Some doors only open from the inside."
Sufi Proverb

Two realms

There are two realms in spirituality, not one. We long for a vision of our destiny and equally for a way to carry out that vision as a gift to others.

IN YOU IS THE PRESENCE

"Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet-
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
Your vast shell reaches into endless space,
And there the rich, thinck fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

A billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Chaaracer

"Trust is the crucial test of all creatures. Trustworthiness is the true measure of self-mastery, character."

God becomes the devil

Look for God outside your own mind, and God becomes the devil.
Dogen Zenji

Love Is

Love Is. At the center of Love is the Fire of Life. At the center of the Fire of Life is the Flow of Breath. At the center of the Flow of Breath is Truth. At the center of Truth is Love. Love Is

teaching others

"In seeking knowledge, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the forth practicing, and the fifth - teaching others."
-- Ibn Gabirol

longer and quieter

"I discovered the middle path of stillness within speed, calmness within fear and I held it longer and quieter than ever before"
-- Steve McKinney when he broke the world downhill ski record.

This holy life ...

The venerable Ananda said to the Buddha: "Half of the this holy life, Lord, is good and noble friends, companionship with the good, association with the good." The Buddha replied, saying, "Do not say that, Ananda, do not say that. It is the whole of this holy life, this friendship, companionship, and association with the good."
from the Samyutta Nikaya

Bring this life ...

Bring this life into harmony with the Intelligence of Being. Bless us with a mother's purpose in service to the People. May we connect o the Beauty Way and be healed.
Peace Pilgrim.

Like a dewdrop

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen

Most important thing

The most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki

Labels

"When you label me you negate me"
Soren Kierkegaard

"I have learned so much from God, that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew."
Hafiz

Teachers

We end up teaching what we most need to learn, because the best way to learn something is to teach it.

Omega Point

"We are moving forward toward some new critical point that lies ahead, a harmonized collectivity of consciousness equivalent to a sort of super-consciousness. The idea is that of the Earth not only becoming covered by myriads of grains of thought, but becoming enclosed in a single thinking envelope so as to form, functionally, no more than a single vast grain of thought on the sidereal scale, the plurality of individual reflections grouping themselves together and reinforcing one another in the act of a single unanimous reflections. Beyond all conflict of empire, peace in conquest and work in joy await us in an interior totalization of the world on itself-in the unanimous building up of a
spirit of the Earth."
-- Teilhard de Chardin speaking of his vision of
our movement toward the "Omega Point"

Inside out

"And in all of my experience, I've never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success, that came from the outside in." Stephen Covey

First believed ...

"I first believed without any hesitation in the existence of the soul, and then I wondered about the secret of its nature. I persevered and strove in search of the soul, and found at last that I myself was the cover of my soul. I realized that in me which believed and that in me which wondered, that which persevered in me, and that which found, and that which was found at last, was no other than my soul. Since then I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all; and what bewilderment it was when I realized that I alone was, if there were anyone; that I am whatever and whoever exists; and that I shall be whoever there will be in the future. And there was no end to my happiness and joy."
-Hazrat Inyat Khan (Sufi Teacher)

Uncovered, discovered

"I uncovered my Soul when my Soul discovered itself. My ego 'knows' my Soul in so far my ego is cast by my Soul, in the same way my body casts a shadow. My contemplation of my Soul is a participation of my Soul's contemplation of itself. I became contemplative when I uncovered my Soul. At each moment of 'uncovering.' I pass through the center of my Soul and experience the long enduring mind."
-- Roots and Wings

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.