June 2010
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their...
“Self deception often arises because you are afraid of your own intellengence and...”
– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Sacred Path of the Warrior
Expect Nothing
Expect nothing.
Live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity… Or, if compassion be freely given out, Take only enough. Stop short of urge to plead. Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart Or greater than a star; Tame wild disappointment With caress unmoved and cold Make of it a parka For your soul. Discover the reason why...
“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for...”
– T.S. Eliot
Let Me Die Laughing
We are all dying, our lives always moving toward completion.
We need to learn to live with death and to understand that death is not the worst of all events.
We need to fear not death, but life-
Empty lives, Loveless lives, Lives that do not build upon the gifts that each of us has been given. Lives that are like living deaths. Lives which we never take the time to savor and appreciate....
I want to be ever a child I want to feel an eternal friendship for the raindrops, the flowers, the insects, the snowflakes. I want to be keenly interested in everything, with mind and muscle ever alert, forgetting my troubles in the next moment. The stars and the sea, the ponds and the trees, the birds and the animals, are my comrades. Though my muscles may stiffen, though my skin may...
“Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future...”
– Naomi Shihab Nye
“I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits...”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Take the word victim off of your person—out of...
Please remember this. I want you to believe it.
I will learn to let go what I cannot change. I...
Sometimes, no matter how much you love someone,...
You as much as anyone in the universe deserve your own love and appreciation, dammit. Do NOT forget that!
