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I hear people my age say, “I feel as good as I ever did.” I don’t believe them. I certainly don’t have the energy I once had. I live with all kinds of aches and pains and like anyone over fifty, I find myself spending an increasing amount of time in doctors’ offices for a patch job here or a major overhaul there. The issue, though, is how you deal with that—how you stand up and bear the patching with grace. (Johnny Cash) |
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Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. (Buddha) |
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My eyes have seen much, |
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If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it's a waste of time looking for him further. (Mohandas K. Ghandi) |
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A man does not get old because he nears death; a man gets old because he can no longer see the false from the good. (Charles Bukowski) |
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To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly. (Colette) |
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The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. (Arthur Schopenhauer) |
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There is not enough nothing in it. (John Cage) |
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The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something. (Yamada Roshi) |
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Nobody sees a flower--really--it is so small it takes time--we haven't time--and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time. (Georgia O'Keeffe) |
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We learn something by doing it. There is no other way. (John Holt) |
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Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace. (Elbert Hubbard) |
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I learn by going where I have to go. (Theodore Roethke) |
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The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is. (John Lancaster Spalding) |
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When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely--the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears--when you give your whole attention to it. (Krishnamurti) |
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You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. (Jack Kornfield) |
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Terrible or not, difficult or not, the only thing that is beautiful, noble, religious, and mystical is to be happy. (Arnaud Desjardins) |
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It takes a long time to understand nothing. (Edward Dahlberg) |
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Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself. (Erich Fromm) |
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A Buddha is one who does not seek. This is the principle of non-seeking: When you seek, you lose it. (Pai-Chang) |
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How terrible to watch a man who has the incomprehensible within his grasp, doesn't know what to do, and sits down to play with a toy called God. (Feodor Dostoyevsky) |
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That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great. (Willa Cather) |
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Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house. (Izumi Shikibu) |
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What the poet is looking for is not the fundamental I but the deep you. (Antonio Machado) |
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We turn not older with years, but newer every day. (Emily Dickinson) |
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We must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose. (Indira Gandhi) |
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Does one really have to fret about enlightenment? No matter what road I travel, I am going home. (Shinso) |
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It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free. (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche) |
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Only in solitude do we find ourselves. (Miguel de Unamuno) |
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Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. (Rumi) |
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Too many have dispersed with generosity in order to practice charity. (Albert Camus) |
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One must be poor to know the luxury of giving. (George Eliot) |
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I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. (Charles M. Schulz) |
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To enter one's own self, it is necessary to go armed to the teeth. (Paul Valéry) |
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When we realize the everlasting truth of "everything changes," and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in nirvana. (Shunryu Suzuki) |
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Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn. (Charlie Parker) |
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If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted with pennies, you have with your proverty bought a lifetime of days. It's that simple. What you see is what you get. (Annie Dillard) |
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If there are questions then, of course, there are answers, but the final answer makes the questions seem absurd. (John Cage) |
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To set up what you like against what you dislike--this is the disease of the mind. (The Hsin-Hsin Ming) |
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Awareness of emptiness brings forth the heart of compassion. (Gary Snyder) |
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The shortest answer is doing. (George Herbert) |
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Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go. (La Fontaine) |
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Once the mind is clear, the very word clarity is like a snowflake on a red hot stove. (Zen saying) |
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For the raindrop, joy is entering the river. (Ghalib) |
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Simplifying our lives does not mean sinking into idleness, but on the contrary, getting rid of the most subtle aspect of laziness: the one which makes us take on thousands of less important activities. (Matthieu Ricard) |
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Break out from inside, and your power is strong. Break in from outside, and your power is weak. (Zen saying) |
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"The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede." (Eugen Herrigel) |
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To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions. (Sam Keen) |
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When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. (Shunryu Suzuki) |
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If treacherous talk is constantly in your ears, and unwanted thoughts are constantly in your mind, you can turn these about and use them as whetstones to enhance your practice. If every word that came to your ears was agreeable, and all things in your mind were pleasant, then your whole life would be poisoned and wasted. (The Ts'ai-ken T'an) |
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There is one art, no more, no less. To do all things with artlessness. (Piet Hein) |
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A monk asked Tung-shan: "When cold and heat come along, how can I avoid them?" Tung-shan said: "Why not go where there is neither cold nor heat?" "Where there is neither cold nor heat?" Tung-shan said: "When it is cold, let the cold kill you. When it is hot, let the heat kill you." (Zen mondo) |
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The establishment of inner harmony is to be attained neither in the past nor in the future, but where the past and future meet, which is the now. When you have attained that point, neither future nor past, neither birth nor death, neither time nor space exist. It is that NOW which is liberation, which is perfect harmony, to which the men of the past and the men of the future must come. (R. H. Blyth) |
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A Vinaya master named Yuan asked Hui-hai: “When disciplining oneself in the Tao, is there any special way of doing it?” “When hungry one eats; when tired one sleeps,” said Hui-hai. “But that is what other people do,” said Yuan. “Is their way the same as yours?” “Not the same,” said Hui. “Why not?” “When they eat, they do not just eat, but conjure up all kinds of imagination; when they sleep, they do not just sleep, they are given to all sorts of idle thoughts.” The Vinaya master asked nothing further of the Zen master. (Zen mondo) |
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The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. (Eleanor Roosevelt) |
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The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears. (Stendhal) |
