Quotations

Love is our true destiny

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone. We find it with another.

~ Thomas Merton in LOVE AND LIVING

Thomas Merton Love And Living love

Honestly accept the journey into physical diminishment as the new learning curve in your life and embrace it with curiosity and beginner's mind. Keep facing forward with a gently yielded heart; that is always the direction from which the new integration emerges.

~ Cynthia Bourgeault from the "Ten Practical Guidelines for Conscious Aging" essay at WisdomWaypoints.org

Cynthia Bourgeault love

May all hearts be opened to one another

May my heart be opened.
May all that is broken within me be healed.
May I awaken to this moment, just as it is.
May all hearts be opened to one another.

May your heart be opened.
May all that is broken within you be healed.
May you awaken to this moment, just as it is.
May all hearts be opened to one another.

May our hearts be opened.
May all that is broken within us be healed.
May we awaken to this moment, just as it is.
May all hearts be opened to one another.

~ Anonymous

love

You come to love

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.

~ Sam Keen in TO LOVE AND BE LOVED

Sam Keen To Love And Be Loved love

This kind of unmasking

When we reveal ourselves to our partner and find that this brings healing rather than harm, we make an important discovery – that intimate relationship can provide a sanctuary from the world of facades, a sacred space where we can be ourselves, as we are... This kind of unmasking – speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges – is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply.

~ John Welwood in LOVE AND AWAKENING

John Welwood LOVE AND AWAKENING love

What you're looking through

Before fixing what you're looking at, check what you're looking through.

~ Mark Nepo in THE BOOK OF AWAKENING

Mark Nepo The Book Of Awakening love

Compassion becomes real

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

~ Pema Chodron in THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU

Pema Chodron THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU love

Bless and sit down

Bless and sit down. Forgive and forget. Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now. That's the story. That's the message. Nobody understands it, nobody listens, they're all running around like chickens with heads cut off. I will try to teach it but it will be in vain, it's why I'll end up in a shack praying and being cool and singing by my woodstove making pancakes.

~ Jack Kerouac from his "The Golden Eternity" letter

Jack Kerouac love

Sabbaths 1999 VI

We travelers, walking to the sun, can't see
Ahead, but looking back the very light
That blinded us shows us the way we came,
Along which blessings now appear, risen
As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,
By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward
That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

~ Wendell Berry, "Sabbaths 1999 VI" in GIVEN

Wendell Berry GIVEN love

True giving

True giving is a thoroughly joyous thing to do. We experience happiness when we form the intention to give, in the actual act of giving, and in the recollection of the fact that we have given. Generosity is a celebration. When we give something to someone we feel connected to them, and our commitment to the path of peace and awareness deepens.

~ Sharon Salzberg in A HEART AS WIDE AS THE WORLD

Sharon Salzberg A HEART AS WIDE AS THE WORLD love

To total acceptance

It costs so much to be fully human... One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms... One has to accept pain as a condition of existence... One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.

~ Morris West in THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN

Morris West THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN love

You will find God there

Go to the place called barren. Stand in the place called empty. And you will find God there.

~ Joan Sauro in WHOLE EARTH MEDITATION

Joan Sauro WHOLE EARTH MEDITATION love

We are naturally reverent beings

We are naturally reverent beings, but much of our natural reverence has been torn away from us because we have been born into a world that hurries. There is no time to be reverent with the earth or with each other. We are all hurrying into progress. And for all our hurrying we lose sight of our true nature a little more each day.

~ Macrina Wiederkehr from the "Radical Grace" newsletter by The Center for Action and Contemplation

Macrina Wiederkehr love

What Is It?

... and how could anyone believe
that anything in this world
is only what it appears to be—

~ Mary Oliver from "What Is It?" in HOUSE OF LIGHT

Mary Oliver House Of Light allow

The presence of everything

Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything . . . It is the presence of time, undisturbed. It can be felt within the chest. Silence nurtures our nature, our human nature, and lets us know who we are. Left with a more receptive mind and a more attuned ear, we become better listeners not only to nature but to each other. Silence can be carried like embers from a fire. Silence can be found, and silence can find you. Silence can be lost and also recovered. But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it.

~ Gordon Hempton in ONE SQUARE INCH OF SILENCE

Gordon Hempton ONE SQUARE INCH OF SILENCE allow

Quietude

I personally believe the noise pollution, both physically noise pollution, as well as our inner noise pollution, is probably one of the single biggest threats to our humanity. And to be able to quiet ourselves enough in whatever practice, and then in the fields of discovery of where we work or where we live, find quietude, so that the signal and antenna can even meet is, to me, the front line of the work. Because if we can't quiet ourselves, getting the instructions, knowing how to meet each other is actually impossible.

~ Azita Walton from "On Nature's Wisdom for Humanity" podcast interview with Krista Tippett

Azita Walton allow

Two questions

For some time now it has seemed to me that two questions we should ask of any strong landscape are these: firstly, what do I know when I'm in this place that I can know nowhere else? And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?

~ Robert Macfarlane in THE OLD WAYS

Robert Macfarlane THE OLD WAYS allow

The Willows

As we are made by what moves us,
willows pull the water up into their
farthest reach which curves again
down divining where their life begins.
So, under travels up, and down and up again,
and the wind makes music of what water was.

~ Marie Howe from "The Willows" in NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

Marie Howe New And Selected Poems allow

Flickering Mind

Lord, not you,
it is I who am absent...

I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river's purling and passing.

Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn. Not you,
it is I who am absent.

You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow,
you the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.

How can I focus my flickering, perceive
at the fountain's heart
the sapphire I know is there?

~ Denise Levertov from "Flickering Mind" in THE STREAM AND THE SAPPHIRE

Denise Levertov THE STREAM AND THE SAPPHIRE allow

In the stillness of quiet

In the stillness of quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.

~ Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman allow

Ich glaube an Alles noch nie Gesagte

...May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke from "Ich glaube an Alles noch nie Gesagte" in RILKE'S BOOK OF HOURS: LOVE POEMS TO GOD

Rainer Maria Rilke Rilke's Book Of Hours: Love Poems To God allow

Something you can actually hear

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

~ Haruki Murakami in KAFKA ON THE SHORE

Haruki Murakami KAFKA ON THE SHORE allow

One with the flowing waters

Lord, in the presence of your love, I ask that you unite my work with your great work, and bring it to fulfillment. Just as a drop of water, poured into a river, becomes one with the flowing waters, so may all I do become part of all that you do. So that those with whom I live and work may also be drawn to your love.

~ Gertrude of Helfta in WOMANPRAYERS

Gertrude of Helfta Womanprayers allow

Psalm 46

Come, behold the works of the Beloved,
how love does reign even in
humanity's desolation.
For the Beloved yearns for wars to cease,
shining light into fearful hearts...
"Be still and know that I am Love.
Awaken! Befriend justice and mercy;
Do you not know you bear my Love?
Who among you will respond?"
O Blessed One, You know all hearts,
You are ever with us;
may Love ever guide our lives!

~ Nan Merrill from her interpretation of "Psalm 46" in PSALMS FOR PRAYING

Nan Merrill Psalms For Praying allow

Let Rain Be Rain

Let rain be rain.
Let wind be wind.
Let the small stone
be the small stone.
May the bird
rest on its branch,
the beetle in its burrow.
May the pine tree
lay down its needles.
The rockrose, its petals.
It's early. Or it's late.
The answers
to our questions
lie hidden
in acorn, oyster, the seagull's
speckled egg.
We've come this far, already.
Why not let breath
be breath. Salt be salt.
How faithful the tide
that has carried us—
that carries us now—
out to sea
and back.

~ Danusha Laméris, "Let Rain Be Rain" from THE WONDER OF SMALL THINGS

Danusha Laméris THE WONDER OF SMALL THINGS allow

That secret from the river

Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.

~ Hermann Hesse in SIDDHARTHA

Hermann Hesse Siddhartha allow

Mystery about rivers

There is a mystery about rivers that draws us to them, for they rise from hidden places and travel by routes that are not always tomorrow where they might be today. Unlike a lake or sea, a river has a destination and there is something about the certainty with which it travels that makes it very soothing, particularly for those who've lost faith with where they're headed.

~ Olivia Laing in TO THE RIVER

Olivia Laing TO THE RIVER allow

You are the branches

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

~ John 15:5, NIV Bible

slower

The truly sacred attitude toward life

The truly sacred attitude toward life is in no sense an escape from the sense of nothingness that assails us when we are left alone with ourselves. On the contrary, it penetrates into that darkness and that nothingness, realizing that the mercy of God has transformed our nothingness into his temple and believing that in our darkness his light has hidden itself. Hence, the sacred attitude is one that does not recoil from our own inner emptiness but rather penetrates into it with awe and reverence, and the awareness of mystery. This is a most important discovery in the interior life.

~ Thomas Merton in THE INNER EXPERIENCE

Thomas Merton THE INNER EXPERIENCE slower

I must see that I am asleep

In order to wish to be present, I must see that I am asleep. "I" am not here. I am enclosed in a circle of petty interests and avidity in which my "I" is lost. And it will remain lost unless I can relate to something higher.

I need to understand that by myself, without a relation with something higher, I am nothing. I can do nothing. By myself alone, I can only remain lost in this circle of interests. I have no quality that allows me to escape. I can escape only if I feel my absolute nothingness and begin to feel the need for help. I must feel the need to relate myself to something higher.

Nothing real in me can be hurt.

~ Madame de Salzmann in THE REALITY OF BEING

Madame de Salzmann The Reality Of Being slower

The conditions that bring forth something new

Progress comes through the voluntary acceptance of constriction and diminishment. And that's the unpleasant bottom line. Because all of us think that evolution comes through expansion. And we automatically equate our larger personhood with expanded space, expanded agency, endless opportunity, a whole canvas to paint on.

But it's actually, spiritually speaking, in the opposite direction. It's in the leaning into the conditions that you at first experience as intolerable, that you gradually realize that they are exactly the conditions that bring forth something new, something that can't be born forth in any other way.

~ Cynthia Bourgeault, 2023 Wisdom School at Claymont

Cynthia Bourgeault slower

A different geography

We have entered a time of descent that takes us down into a different geography. In this shadowed terrain, we encounter a landscape familiar to soul—loss, grief, death, vulnerability, and fear. We have, in the old language of Alchemy, crossed into the Nigredo...This is a season of decay, of shedding and endings, of falling apart and undoing. This is not a time of rising and growth. It is not a time of confidence and ease. No. We are hunkered down. Down being the operative word. From the perspective of soul, down is holy ground.

~ Francis Weller in IN THE ABSENCE OF THE ORDINARY

Francis Weller IN THE ABSENCE OF THE ORDINARY slower

The downward way

The divine way is indeed the downward way.

~ Henri Nouwen in THE SELFLESS WAY OF CHRIST

Henri Nouwen THE SELFLESS WAY OF CHRIST slower

To realize one's nothingness

To awaken means to realize one's nothingness, that is, to realize one's complete and absolute mechanicalness, and one's complete and absolute helplessness. And it is not sufficient to realize it philosophically in words. It is necessary for us to realize it in clear, simple and concrete facts, in our own facts.

Until we reach the stage of realizing our own nothingness, we cannot change. To begin to realize one's own nothingness as a practical experience is to begin to cease identifying with oneself.

~ Maurice Nicoll in PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES ON THE TEACHING OF GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKY, VOL 1

Maurice Nicoll PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES ON THE TEACHING OF GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKY, VOL 1 slower

Now you are nothing

Sometimes a grief like storm-wind sweeps away
All the words I found to bring to you
I shake helpless, silent as a corpse
'Be happy' you say 'Now you are nothing'

~ Jalal-ud-Din Rumi in A YEAR WITH RUMI

Rumi A YEAR WITH RUMI slower

To begin to feel

Awakening is messy. You don't transcend into some paradisiacal, elitist inner garden— It doesn't perfect you. You first come into all the reasons you've so wanted to stay asleep. And there are many good reasons. To awaken, really, is to begin to feel. Awakening is bit by bit coming out of denial around all the reasons you've needed to wield that terrible tool of othering— because so much is unbearable inside of our own self.

Awakening doesn't come from spiritual mastery defined as overcoming enough of our shortcomings. It is found in doing our fumbling best to grow into arms strong and loving enough to hold and hug our aching humanity. The myth that awakening looks anything like spiritual perfectionism is perhaps the best sleeping pill. Awakening is the at times compass-less and often inglorious inner odyssey toward the rough ruby of all that is bruised and true in our hearts. Awakening isn't only for special people. We're all on our way toward coming out of the sleep cycle.

~ Chelan Harkin in WILD GRACE

Chelan Harkin WILD GRACE slower

Enough being

May I have enough being to be nothing.

~ Rafe, hermit monk at St. Benedict's monastery

Rafe slower

Find your practice and practice it

Find your practice and practice it. Find your teaching and follow it. Find your community and be faithful to it. Otherwise, you will tend to float around with no accountability system for what you too easily "believe" in your head. Your own ego will end up being the decider and chooser moment by moment.

At any given time we are likely to have not a single practice but rather a constellation of practices, often with one of them as our primary practice. Others may surround it, each carrying its own special place in our life... As the months and years go by the constellation changes. New practices emerge. Practices that have been present for years fall out of the picture.

~ James Finley from the "Contemplation and Action" podcast

James Finley slower

Are You Mr. William Stafford?

"You don't have to prove anything," my mother said. "Just be ready for what God sends."

I listened and put my hand out in the sun again. It was easy.

~ William Stafford, last poem before he died, "Are You Mr. William Stafford?" in ASK ME: 100 ESSENTIAL POEMS OF WILLIAM STAFFORD

William Stafford ASK ME: 100 ESSENTIAL POEMS OF WILLIAM STAFFORD slower

Give over thine own willing

Give over thine own willing. Give over thine own running. Give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God chose in thy heart, and let that grow in thee, and be in thee, and breathe in thee, and act in thee, and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that, and loves and owns that, and will lead it to the inheritance of life, which is God's portion.

~ Isaac Penington, Quaker mystic, in EXPLORING ISAAC PENINGTON

Isaac Penington EXPLORING ISAAC PENINGTON slower

Pull them into your peace

Don't let people pull you into their storm. But instead, pull them into your peace and make all things new.

~ Pema Chödrön in WHEN THINGS FALL APART

Pema Chodron When Things Fall Apart slower

The artists of being alive

And yet, I know artists whose medium is Life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel, or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased Life. They SEE and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.

~ Frederick Franck in THE ZEN OF SEEING

Frederick Franck The Zen Of Seeing create

We are making something

I have come to believe that unless we are making something, we cannot know the depth of God’s being and God’s grace permeating our lives and God’s creation.

~ Makoto Fujimura in ART AND FAITH: A THEOLOGY OF MAKING

Makoto Fujimura ART AND FAITH: A THEOLOGY OF MAKING create

The raw materials of our lives

Our spiritual traditions have carried virtues across time. They are tools for the art of living. They are pieces of intelligence about human behavior that neuroscience is now exploring with new words and images: what we practice, we become. What’s true of playing the piano or throwing a ball also holds for our capacity to move through the world mindlessly and destructively or generously and gracefully. I’ve come to think of virtues and rituals as spiritual technologies for being our best selves in flesh and blood, time and space. There are superstar virtues that come most readily to mind and can be the work of a day or a lifetime—love, compassion, forgiveness. And there are gentle shifts of mind and habit that make those possible, working patiently through the raw materials of our lives.

~ Krista Tippett in BECOMING WISE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE MYSTERY AND ART OF LIVING

Krista Tippett BECOMING WISE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE MYSTERY AND ART OF LIVING create

A Sort Of A Song

Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!

~ William Carlos Williams from "A Sort Of A Song" in THE WEDGE

William Carlos Williams THE WEDGE create

The Man Who Has Many Answers

The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.
While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.

~ Mary Oliver, "The Man Who Has Many Answers", in A THOUSAND MORNINGS: POEMS

Mary Oliver A THOUSAND MORNINGS: POEMS create

The manifestation of one’s essence

Education is...a drawing out of one’s own genius, nature, and heart. The manifestation of one’s essence, the unfolding of one’s capacities, the revelation of one’s heretofore hidden possibilities... From another side, study amplifies the speech and song of the world so that it’s more palpably present.

Education in the soul leads to the enchantment of the world and the attunement of self.

~ Thomas Moore in MEDITATIONS

Thomas Moore Meditations create

There are always two poems

There are always two poems—the one you want to write and the other that must write itself.

~ M. NourbeSe Philip in ZONG!

M. NourbeSe Philip ZONG! create

We are created creative

Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure...and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative...

~ Maya Angelou in WOULDN’T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW

Maya Angelou WOULDN’T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW create

To become co-creators

Let us sing to the Creator of the cosmos,
to the divine power of love!
When we look at the wondrous display
of the heavens,
at the Earth with its infinite
variety of life,
Who are we that You love us, that You
rejoice in our being;
that You trust us to care for creation
in all its splendor,
inviting us to become co-creators
with You?
Let us celebrate the mystery of life!
Let us commit our lives to
the Divine Plan!

~ Nan Merrill from MEDITATIONS AND MANDALAS

Nan Merrill Meditations And Mandalas create

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