The Seat Can Endure

The head cannot take in more
than the seat can endure.

Winston Churchill

The Three Stages of Manhood

The three stages of manhood are:
boy, man, and "You look good!"

Billy Crystal

The Natural Order of Things

The allegation of independence 
is the real codependence. And
codependence, that's
the natural order of things.

Stephen Jenkinson

The Idea of Initiation

It doesn't seem to me that the idea of initiation
should be talked about as a separate undertaking
from the undertaking of trying to come to
an understanding of what constitutes
your sense of being human.

Stephen Jenkinson

Too Expensive

Our sense of "OK" is
too expensive for the world.

Stephen Jenkinson

Knowledge and Learning

Knowledge is all the uncertainty you can bear.
Learning is the uncertainty you can't.

Stephen Jenkinson

You Don't Have to Cooperate

You're dying, but you don't have to cooperate
so enthusiastically with the process.

Leonard Cohen

So I'm Not

I don't want it to end, and as it ends, I will wish it's not. 
But not wishing it would end is not the same thing as 
being resentful or having a grudge, because when I
finally saw the ending of me, is when I became capable.
That was God kissing me on the forehead, saying
"This is not going to last, son, so away you go.
You don't have to hold anything back." So I'm not.

Stephen Jenkinson

The Word Lost

The word lost means you're not where you wish you were.
That's what lost is. It doesn't mean you don't know where
you are, it means you wish you weren't here. So lostness
is a condition of wishing otherwise, of being unwilling to
be in the place you actually are.

Stephen Jenkinson

Regrets

Down along the fence line, the back forty of your life,
there's a pile of stones, your regrets. If you don't go down
there to visit them often, you'll end up thinking either that
they're not there at all, rarely true, or that they make a pile
a mile high, rarely true too. So, here it is, they're always
there and the pile is rarely as high as you think it is.
When the ending of days comes into view, that's

a good time to visit that little altar. So here's an idea.

Don't add another stone to the pile with the way you are

with the ending of days. Just remember. Then climb

that little hill, picking up one stone and putting it back

in place, remembering as you go, it's not all bad.

When you get to the top, look around, because that's

the vast field of your life, with everything it was,

now visible and lucid and you can only really see it

from up there. And that's the big story.

Stephen Jenkinson

I Wish You Could

I'm gonna take a little walk
through them fields.
I'm gonna carry me gently
so my heart can heal.
I'm gonna find me a demon
in a dark, dark wood.
You can't come with me.
I wish you could.

Gregory Hoskins

Call It Love

From cradle to grave, human life appears to be

one, long, continuous effort to feel comfortable,

physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

If we can get that and accept that it's our natural way

of being, we might understand ourselves better

and things might just go a little bit better for us all.

As we find more sustainable and healthy ways

to feel comfortable, we can use these for ourselves

and for others' sake. We might even call it "love."

I don't know.

Dan Metevier

Like It Slow

I've always liked it slow.
I never liked it fast.
You want this thing to go.
I want this thing to last.

Leonard Cohen

On the Receiving End

Anybody who speaks with any authority
about the arc of their life is either foolish
or wasn't there. You know, because that
sound of authority makes it sound like
you were dialing it in, or you knew
what you were doing, or you knew
where it should go. But you're on
the receiving end of how your life goes,

right?

Stephen Jenkinson

I Still Don't Know

I'm circling around God, and
around the ancient tower
And I'm been circling for a thousand years
And I still don't know if I'm a falcon, or a storm,
Or a great song.

Rainer Maria Rilke

A Society Grows Great

A society grows great

when old men plant trees
in whose shade they

shall never sit.

Greek Proverb

No Appetite for Learning

The instinct to supply, over and over again, solutions,
the mania for solving, solving, and solving is
generally a mania that's undertaken at the expense
of learning how things came to be as they are.
Because there's no appetite for learning inconvenient,
unsought, unwanted realities. There's only an appetite
for escaping them and leaving them behind.

So the solutions that are generated by a mind

or a people or an era that wants to leave
its desperately unwanted recent past behind
generated what kind of solutions? Solutions that continue
to bear the kind of problems they're trying to leave behind.

Stephen Jenkinson

So Lightly Here

So come, my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear

Leonard Cohen

What Grief Does

What grief does is let you in for this:
The ways of the world are bigger than you.
The ways of the world are bigger than your decisions
and your belief systems about it and your proper posture
in the face of the world is humility, not control.
It's taking a knee, not taking more of what you need.

Stephen Jenkinson

Going Home

I love to speak with Leonard
He's a sportsman and a shepherd
He's a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn't welcome
He just doesn't have the freedom

To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom

Like a sage, a man of vision

Though he knows he's really nothing

But the brief elaboration of a tube

Leonard Cohen

Donning a Spacesuit

When I was born I donned a spacesuit
for living on this plane, it was this body.

Ram Dass

Dangerous Thoughts

We can entertain dangerous thoughts
without being in danger.

Stephen Jenkinson

Willing Somehow to Serve

Your capacity at being old, righteously and properly old,
is that you no longer are driven by what you want but

instead, you're willing somehow to serve.

Stephen Jenkinson

Grieve on Schedule

Your capacity to become a deep-running human being
is born in your capacity to grieve on schedule, or
as I put it, to be wrecked on schedule.

Stephen Jenkinson

Go On

I can't go on.
I'll go on.

Samuel Beckett (Book Title)

Living With the Questions

The market's cornered on solutions.
I live with the questions.

My glandular event is wonder.

It's not certainty and salvation,

it's wonder.

Stephen Jenkinson 

Elderhood in Other Words

If you don't learn the poverties, you don't know anything.
And if you don't know anything, you're not a grown-up.
You're just a bag of aspirations and fret and striving to be free.
But what's human freedom really? Is human freedom to be
freed from anything or everything? Or is human freedom
the capacity to act differently in the face of an utterly

unchanged circumstance? I tend to think it's the second one.

Human freedom is an exercise in being willing to proceed

otherwise when nothing in the circumstance rewards you

for doing so. Elderhood, in other words.

Stephen Jenkinson

Elderhood's Fundamental Responsibility

Elderhood's fundamental responsibility is cultural,
not interfamilial. The principal responsibility of an elder
is to see to it that the culture is enhanced, endorsed,
and underwritten by sanity. And wherever they see
the betrayal of cultural sanity, it's their responsibility
to at least blow the whistle, if not do something 

actively about it.

Stephen Jenkinson

Empty Life and Full Life

You have to learn "empty life."
What kind of lesson is that?
That's where your grievance
about being ripped off because
you're dying comes from:
from having been taught about
"empty life" and "full life."

That's a curse, not a teaching.

Stephen Jenkinson

Grieving and Loving

Grief is a way of loving

that which has slipped from view.

Love is a way of grieving

that which has not yet done so.

Love becomes a recognition

of its temporariness and

you love the temporariness too.

Stephen Jenkinson

People in Therapy

People in therapy are often in therapy
to deal with the people in their lives
who won't go to therapy.

Unknown

Hope Obliges You

The present is generous and you
don't need to turn away from it.
But hope obliges you to abandon
the present for the sake of a possible future.

And if you're dying, what are you supposed

to be hoping for? That you're not dying?

What will that turn you into? It's not good.

Stephen Jenkinson

Being Alive

When I glimpsed the end of what I claimed to love,
being alive, that was the beginning of my capacity
to love it. Now that is about as counterintuitive
as you can get. When I saw the end, I was granted
the capacity to fully inhabit and locate myself
in being alive.

Stephen Jenkinson

The Grief That's For Real

The grief that's for real, the big one, it comes from a recognition of the way life is and must be, that it requires death to be able to continue because death feeds everything that lives. The recognition that that's the case and that it includes, not just you, that's the easy part to see, but it includes the people that you love and the things that you don't want to end. That's grief and it's not personal. But the key, the real skill to being grateful is not to be grateful for the stuff that benefits you. That's easy. What about being grateful for the stuff that doesn't benefit you in the least, but you're grateful that it's in the world? Now you're getting somewhere. 

Stephen Jenkinson

No One Asked Them to Do It

Someone who's dying has a job description in front of them. No one asked them to do it. Their job is to die I'm going to say extravagantly instead of well. To set the banquet table that should be spilled in the wake of their dying, where everyone who ever knew them, or whoever wanted to, or whoever didn't want to, is invited. And the storytelling that ensues is the feast.

Stephen Jenkinson

Walk Around As If It's True

Your life is in the loop.
Your life is the loop.
You're part of the loop.
And hopefully, that stirs in you
that feeling enormously grateful
and then enormously indebted.
And you don't know what to do
about the two of them and
you think you're supposed to
do something about the two of them
but you're not. You're supposed to
know it and walk around as if it's true.

Stephen Jenkinson

Not Human

It is not human to fear death
because it's not a universal fact.

Stephen Jenkinson

Twin Skills of Life

The twin of grief, as a skill of life, is the skill
of being able to praise or love life, which means
wherever you find one authentically done,
the other is very close at hand. Grief and
the praise of life, side by side.

Stephen Jenkinson

No Grander Purpose

We are not created for any grander purpose than the ants
that are there or the flies that are hovering around us or
the mosquitos that are sucking our blood.

U.G. Krishnamurti

The Fact That It Ends

The crucible of making human beings is death.
Every culture worth a damn knows that.
It's not success. It's not growth. It's not happiness.
It's death. That's the cradle of your love of life.
The fact that it ends.

Stephen Jenkinson

How Firmly in Your Life

If you have to get the news
of your death from somebody else,
how firmly in your life are you?

If you can't anticipate your own death

and befriend it, and so on, then

how strongly in your life are you?

Stephen Jenkinson

The Most Challenged

Of all the life forms on this planet,
the human one is the most challenged
to show the proper regard and respect
for the natural order of things and
to find our way in it.

Stephen Jenkinson

Not Much Known

Our mortality is a knowable thing,
not much known by us.

Stephen Jenkinson

Be Prepared to Stop

Be prepared to stop, while
stopping is still an option.

Choose the thing that will be

otherwise forced upon you.

Stephen Jenkinson

What Has to Die

What has to die is
your refusal to die.

Stephen Jenkinson

The First Casualty

The habits of life should properly be the first casualty 
of you entering into the end of your days.

Stephen Jenkinson

North Americans Are Addicted

North Americans are addicted to a terminal degree
to their competence and their certainties and
their swagger and their autonomy and mastery.
These things are recipes for dying a miserable,
grinding death. Guaranteed, virtually.

Stephen Jenkinson

Cashing Out

What dying is really supposed to be is you
sort of releasing your death grip on everything
that granted you your certainties, your stabilities,
your sense of yourself, and all of that. You're
basically cashing out, and hopefully with
a sense of gratitude about the whole operation.

Stephen Jenkinson

Refusing to End

It remains mysterious to me,

the hostility toward endings

is presented as a life-positive

orientation, that it's life-affirming.

But there's nothing about life
that refusing to end, affirms.

Stephen Jenkinson

The Demand to Live

The death trade, as I learned it and saw it, is there
principally to deliver on the demand to live.

It's beyond an expectation. It's an inalienable right.

And if the endings of your life are coming to call

and you wake up every day demanding to live,

you are likely to be in a circumstance of adversity,

not companionship. And that is a culturally-derived,

deep-running error that means you no good.

Stephen Jenkinson

Without God

Psychology has become monotheism
without God.

Stephen Jenkinson

Sinking vs. Floating

When one tries to stay
on the surface of the water,
one sinks.
When one tries to sink,
one floats.

Zen Proverb

The Meaning of Awake

The word awake [a wake] means
"to be claimed by the fanning out
of consequence, intended and otherwise,
that ensues as a result of you [and yours]
proceeding how you do."

Stephen Jenkinson

We are Experience, Experiencing

Sure, thought may insist we lack purpose,
but that doesn't mean we aren't living our purpose

already anyway. And doing it spectacularly well.
The point is clear. We are alive. We breathe.

We walk and talk and like and 

dislike and want and cry and laugh.
We are experience, experiencing.
And that, as it is, is the whole perfect, already-here, point.
Which makes insisting on additional contribution

or purpose kind of pointless.

Judy Cohen

More Experiences

Listen to your elder's advice,
not because they are always right
but because they have more experiences
of being wrong.

Unknown 

The Work of the Elder

The work of the elder is determined entirely
by what prevails and what ails a people
at a given time.

Stephen Jenkinson

That's It

I think the world whispers,
"All we need of you is that 

you be human. That's it."
The dilemma is in the meaning
of the word "human."

Stephen Jenkinson

Just Right

No rules.
Just right.

Former Tagline for Outback Steakhouse Restaurants

Always Had the Power

You've always had the power, my dear.
You just had to learn it for yourself.

Glinda the Good Witch (Wizard of Oz)

Think Different

If you continue to think the way
you've always thought,
you'll continue to get
what you've always got.

Kevin Trudeau

You Know It's a Blessing

I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow
and called out, "It tastes sweet, does it not?"
You have caught me, grief answered,
and you have ruined my business.
How can I sell sorrow,
when you know it's a blessing?

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

The Shaman

The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history
that unites the doctor, the scientist, and the artist into
a single notion of care-giving and creativity.

Terence McKenna

Learning to be Astonished

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is
my work, which is mostly standing still and
learning to be astonished.

Mary Oliver

Like a Pendulum

Life is like a pendulum:
the deeper the sorrow,
the more colorful the joy.

Isadora Duncan

There You Are

So, the cross is always ready and waits for you everywhere.
You cannot escape it no matter where you run, for
wherever you go you are burdened with yourself.
Wherever you go, there you are.

Thomas a Kempis

No Feeling is Final

Let everything happen to you.
Beauty and terror. Just keep going.
No feeling is final.

Rainer Maria Rilke

New Seeds

Yesterday is gone and its tale told.
Today new seeds are growing.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Complete Appropriateness

My idea of enlightenment is when ego and Tao are fused,
and Tao is perceived as ego. Then everything happens
with complete appropriateness.

Terence McKenna

Spiritual Authority

When you confer spiritual authority on another person,
you must realize that you are allowing them to
pick your pocket and sell you your own watch.

Alan Watts

Always Something

It just goes to show you,
it's always something.
If it's not one thing,

it's another.

Rosanne Rozannadanna (played by Gilda Radner)

Never Mind

Never mind.

Emily Litella (played by Gilda Radner)

The Named and the Nameless

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Lao Tzu

Does Anybody Really Care?

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
If so, I can't imagine why.
We've all got time enough to cry.

Chicago Transit Authority/Chicago

The One Question

For those of you who are on your spiritual journey, regardless of whether you're at the beginning or on the path for many years, the one thing you need to be absolutely honest about, the one question you need to get really clear on is: "What is more important to me - do I want to feel good or do I want to know what's true? And the reason you need to ask yourself that question is this: the vast majority of truth seekers out there aren't really in it for the truth. They THINK they are, but they're not. They're in it to feel good, to feel better. And that's why the spiritual industry has turned into a multi-billion-dollar market designed to provide you with strategies on how to feel good about yourself. But it isn't about the truth, it never was, because truth doesn't always feel good. In fact, it rarely ever does and what feels good is rarely ever true. There are a million and one ways to feel good but only one way to see the truth. The question is: what do you really want? You may say you want the truth but can you handle the truth?

Shiv Sengupta

Why Not?

Start with "I don't know."
Why not start where
you'll end up anyway?

Adyashanti

Human Nature

It is human nature that when faced with the unknown we will find a way to pretend to know it.
It is human nature that when faced with uncertainty we will try to assert certainties.
It is human nature that when confronted with the void we will try and cover it up.

Shiv Sengupta

The Absurd

Man stands face to face with the irrational.

He feels within him his longing for happiness

and for reason. The absurd is born of this

confrontation between the human need

and the unreasonable silence of the world.

Albert Camus

Your Choice

Let go or

be dragged.

Zen Proverb

Senseless, Absurd, Useless

Cut off from his religious, metaphysical,
and transcendental roots, man is lost;
all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.

Eugene Ionesco

The First Truth

The absurd is the essential concept
and the first truth.

Albert Camus

I Say Let It Burn

If a truth burns down a relationship, a family,

a community, or a society it was only ever

held together by lies. And to that I say, let it burn.

I never want to live in a world where our need

for "comfort" supersedes our need to stand

on a foundation only the truth can provide.

Mark Groves 

Was It a Joke?

If you tell a joke

in the forest,
but nobody laughs,
was it a joke?

Steven Wright

End Quote

Sometimes I wish my first word was "quote," so that
on my death bed, my last words could be "end quote."

Steven Wright

So Far, So Good

I intend to live forever.
So far, so good.

Steven Wright

Just After You Need It

Experience is something you don't get
until just after you need it.

Steven Wright

Our Vast "Don't Know"

It is trust in our vast "don't know"
that allows room for the truth,
that allows the next intuition
to float to the surface.

Stephen Levine

As Though It Were the Last

Letting the last breath come.
Letting the last breath go.
Dissolving, dissolving into vast space,
the light body released from its heavier form.
A sense of connectedness with all that is,
all sense of separation dissolved
in the vastness of being.
Each breath melting into space
as though it were the last.

Stephen Levine

Just As It Is

When we recognize that, just like the glass,
our body is already broke, that indeed
we are already dead, then life becomes precious,
and we open to it just as it is,
in the moment it is occurring.

Stephen Levine

Our Quest for More

Sometimes less is more.
Our quest for more, then,
keeps us from it.

Jane Denise

More or Less

Less is more.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ol' Man River

There's an ol' man 

called the Mississippi

That's the ol' man

that I'd like to be

What does he care if

the world's got troubles

What does he care if

the land ain't free

Ol' man river
That ol' man river
He must know somethin'
But don't say nothin'
He just keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along

Oscar Hammerstein II

Anarchy

Don't know what I want,
but I know how to get it.

Sex Pistols (Anarchy in the UK)

Not Afraid of Death

I'm not afraid of death.
I just don't want to be there
when it happens.

Woody Allen

Suffering and Fear

Suffering is the curriculum
and fear is the teacher.

Shiv Sengupta

Your Own Myth

Don't be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Brave Enough

For there is always light,
if we're brave enough to see it,
if we're brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman

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 melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the rad full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognizes as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and

deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life that you could

save.

Mary Oliver

Laughing in Atonishment

Let me keep my distance, always,

from those who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with
those who say "Look!" and laugh in
astonishment, and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver

Open Your Mind

Open your mind.
Your brain won't fall out.
but years of conditioning will.

Erin Chatters

I Didn't Need to Believe

The inside search was rewarding, and it was there
that I found that I didn't need to believe anything at all.
Everything that I needed was right inside me.
The outside was useful only when it helped me
to get in touch with what was inside.

Barry Stevens

Mountains Once Again

Before I had studied Zen for thirty years,
I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters.

When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I came to the point where I saw that mountains
are not mountains and waters are not waters.

But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest.
For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters.

Seigen Ishin

Then There Is

First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is.

Donovan

No World for Me

When I was small, I use to see a vision of the world, with people sticking out all over it sort of like straight-up hairs from a head, and each of the people was bowing to someone else. All of them. Nobody was doing what he wanted to. In such a world, everyone was left out. This was no world for me.

Barry Stevens

Only His Own Answer

It is a lie if anyone thinks

he has the right answer.

He has only his own answer.

Barry Stevens

Where I Foul Up

Where I foul up is in
letting other people
make choices for me.

Barry Stevens

Where Everything Happens

What I shall do here has got lost.
I'm doing it. I am out of the future,
where I can't do anything except
in fantasy, and into the present,
where everything happens.

Barry Stevens

Turn Your Back

To lead an orchestra,

you must turn your back

on the crowd.

Aristotle

A Good Traveler

A good traveler
has no fixed plans
and is not intent
on arriving.

Lao Tzu

Campbell on Nietzsche

Nietzsche is the one who did the job for me.

At a certain moment in his life, the idea

came to him of what he called "the love

of your fate." Whatever your fate is,

whatever the hell happens, you say,

"This is what I need." It may look like

a wreck, but go at it as though it were

an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring

love to that moment - not discouragement -

you will find the strength is there.

Any disaster you can survive is an

improvement in your character, your stature,

and your life. What a privilege! This is when

the spontaneity of your own nature will have

a chance to flow.

Joseph Campbell

Everything is a Miracle

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

Who Am I?

I yam 

what I yam.

Popeye the Sailor Man

Experience Your Soul

Follow your intuition and eventually
you'll experience your soul, in your body,
as your personality.

Penney Pierce

Grasping the Paradox

When we grasp the paradox that nothing is fixed
and ordained nor is it random and accidental,
we have made the shift into truly living our mission.
We begin to see that our role is to engage with life,
to participate, to enjoy, and have fun.

Carol Adrienne

Turning Toward What We Don't Know

Eventually, if we are lucky, life gets painful enough
that we are forced to turn away from what we know
and turn toward what we don't know.

Carol Adrienne

Making the Truth Palatable

Nobody can stand truth if it is told to him.
Truth can be tolerated only if you discover it
yourself because then the pride of discovery
makes the truth palatable.

Fritz Perls

It Flows By Itself

Don't push the river,
it flows by itself.

Fritz Perls

There is No Reality

There is no reality. There are only people who know this
and people who don't know this and are therefore
being manipulated by the people who do know it.

Terence McKenna

Language Shapes Its Users

The corrupting or curious thing about language
is that like all tools, it shapes its user in ways
that are not suspected until it's too late.

Terence McKenna

It's True Enough

It means a great divide has been crossed when you can say that ["It's true enough"] because it means you understand now that you are no longer a fairy in a platonic super world but that you are actually a monkey with a brain full of mush trying to sort out, you know, what's right in front of you.

Terence McKenna

Willing to Be Aware

All you need to do to get free of pain, to get un-stupid, is to be willing to be aware of anything that enters your consciousness ... The way out, as hard as it may be to believe, is not by resisting further, by moving the furniture around, but by being willing to conceive of it - by loving it, in short. As we should have done in the first place ... My catch-all phrase is: "I wouldn't deny that experience to the One Mind."

Thaddeus Golas

Not Attainable

This is not attainable, to eliminate our humanity by reaching this exalted state. It is not attainable. The attempt to attain this unattainable state has become in itself a cause of depression for people. So it becomes one more layer where they're not enough, they've failed, they haven't got it, they're doing something wrong, and it becomes one more layer of imperfection and it just doesn't seem fair when life is hard enough.

Judy Cohen

What's Making the Plan?

Everything happens for a reason:
What's making the plan?
What being's reason?
What is doing this, if there is a reason?
What's plan are we following?

Judy Cohen

On Someone Else's Program

One of my main critiques of so-called "spirituality" is that it allows for almost a perfect escapism. I mean, you create this other world in the imagination that the Buddha or whoever attained, and now you're on that path and you spend your whole life walking the path and that is how you avoid the actual living of this moment. You're on someone else's program. And you find a teacher who teaches you his or her program and you believe it and now you're actually living a second-hand life.

Robert Saltzman

What Else Can We Do?

What else can we do?
We're either enjoying it 
or enduring it. Those are
the only options, really,
as long as we're alive.
And I guess the question
for me would be: is it possible
to find any, any, any
beauty at all even in pain?
Or does it have to be
gritted teeth and bulled through?

Judy Cohen

Depending on No Thing

Depending on no thing,
you must find your own mind.

Diamond Sutra

Being Exactly Right

A buddha would see you all as being exactly right;
just where you are, all of you are buddhas.
Even for those of you who do not know it,
it is right for you not to know it at this moment.

Alan Watts

Rigged in Your Favor

Live life as if everything
is rigged in your favor.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

It's Here!

While we're waiting for realization,
while we're waiting for understanding,
it's here! We don't need to understand this,
we really don't. It's here already. And
whether we get it or not, still here!

Judy Cohen

You're Never Here

This very moment, this very world,
this very body is the point. Now You see?
But, if you're seeking something beyond
all the time, you never get with it,
you're never here.

Alan Watts

Get Out of Your Own Way

When you are not getting in the way of yourself,
you will begin to find out that all the great things
you do are really happenings. All growth is something
that happens. For growth to happen, two things

are important. You must have the technical ability

to express what happens. And secondly,

you must get out of your own way.

Alan Watts

It's a Happening

I consider it all a happening
and not an attainment.

Judy Cohen

Just the Bliss Please

Here is existence, consciousness, awareness,
whichever word you want to put on it,
providing this vast range of experience,
not just bliss, and here we are saying
"Yeah, OK, but I just want the bliss please."

Judy Cohen

Nothing Else is Possible

Think of the worst thing you ever did.
Go into it as deeply as you can, from the
perspective of the person you were at the time.
With the limited understanding you had then,
weren't you doing the best you could?
How could you have done it any differently,
believing what you believed?
If you really enter this exercise,
you'll see that nothing else is possible.

Byron Katie

Such As They Are

If you understand, things are such as they are;
If you do not understand, things are such as they are.

Gensha

No Mistake

It's not possible to have the concept "mistake"
unless you're comparing what is with what isn't.
Without the story in your mind, it's all perfect.

Byron Katie

That's Been Done

One of the things that I have found and was a great relief for me when I came to see this was that the experience of this existence, there are so many versions, it's completely infinite and so whatever you have discovered for yourself in terms of what bliss is, what enlightenment is, what understanding is, that's been done. It's not going to look like that for anybody else.

Judy Cohen

Come at It Sideways

Aiming for bigness,
good luck with that.
You have to come
at it sideways.

Judy Cohen

Driven by Preferences

The aim for bliss leaves out

a whole lot of experience.
When we are driven by

our preferences for happiness
and bliss, this [something bigger]

becomes less available to us.

We're eliminating vast quantities

of experience that consciousness

has no problem with. The drive to

bliss is a human-limiting, often

comes with pain, non-essential.

Judy Cohen

The Love Religion

The inner space inside
that we call the heart
has become many different
living scenes and stories.

A pasture for sleek gazelles,

a monastery for Christian monks,

a temple with Shiva dancing,

a kaaba for pilgrimage.

The tablets of Moses are there,

the Qur'an, the Vedas,

the sutras, and the gospels.

Love is the religion for me.

Whichever way love's camel goes,

that way becomes my faith,

the source of beauty, and a light

of sacredness over everything.

Ibn Arabi

Whatever Insults the Soul

If blasphemy is possible in this experiment
to know and live what is, perhaps it is in
whatever insults the soul.

Coleman Barks

The Nature of the Universe

The universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal Mind. To put the conclusion crudely - the stuff of the world is mind-stuff. As is often the way with crude statements, I shall have to explain that by "mind" I do not exactly mean mind and by "stuff" I do not at all mean stuff. Still, that is about as near as we can get to the idea in a simple phrase.

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

The Truth I Try to Follow

The world is so amazingly interesting,
I want to be completely here for its moment.
That longing is the truth I try to follow,
rather than religion's iconography.

Coleman Barks

Prayer

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

Galway Kinnell

Sage Wisdom

It's all bullshit.

Al Sans Souci (my neighbor's dad)

Not the Boss

You can't aim for joy and happiness
and expect to reach it.
You're not the boss of that.

Judy Cohen

Time to Not Hurl Ourselves

If this dream hurts and you don't want it to hurt anymore,
maybe it's time to not hurl ourselves at that wall.

Judy Cohen

What's Here is Good Enough

The key to whether [something] is torture or painful

or not, as you are accomplishing and as you are

getting to do things, the difference to whether that

hurts or not has to do with whether what's here is

good enough.

Judy Cohen

A Lot of Peace

There's a lot of peace in
not being the one in charge.

Judy Cohen

Rarely Kind

There's nothing wrong with thought,
except that it's rarely kind.

Judy Cohen

All the Rest is Thought

When people do experience "This is it,"
which is simply true, breathe in, breathe out,
all the rest is thought.

Judy Cohen

Be a Connoisseur

Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight.
Be a connoisseur, and taste with caution.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

The Paradox

When you get to a point where you just say,

"Screw it, here now, this is it," paradoxically,

there is a relief that comes with that kind of

surrender to what is, instead of what we want.

Judy Cohen

Thoughts About Inquiry

As a way to make the dream world less painful, it's great. And why wouldn't you want to do that? If you did nothing but that, fab! If we can find a way to not hurt, why wouldn't we want to do that?

(Luckily, eventually Judy came to see that the methods she was trained and certified in actually perpetuated, strengthened, the sense of self as damaged.)

Judy Cohen

This Doesn't Do Words

What this is, doesn't do words. 
We don't need to put words on it.
When we put words on it,
we make it small. So,

we don't need them.

Judy Cohen

It Doesn't Want To

You can't get free of the self via the self. You can't question the self and expect to get beyond it. How would that work? You can't solve the issues of the mind, the problems that appear in our lives, that mind has created, problems that thought has created, you can't solve them with thought. It doesn't want to, or it wouldn't have created these issues to begin with.

Judy Cohen

Seeking Something Else Later

You can't get content and accepting and fully

in the present while you are busily seeking

something else later. Because inherent

in the seeking is a disregard, disapproval,
a lack of respect for the present.
"This isn't OK, I need enlightenment!"
So, if you define awakening by fully embracing the present,
then how are you going to get it by chasing it?
It makes no sense.

Judy Cohen

Not Through the Lens of Ego

Most people think enlightenment is like an unending satori experience. But that misunderstanding will get you to do more "tail chasing" than you ever dreamed possible. In the end, enlightenment has very little to do with enlightenment experiences. It is simply not perceiving through the lens of ego.

Adyashanti

After, I continue ...

Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed;
after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.

Anthony de Mello

It Comes and Goes

Do not mistake bliss for awareness -
it comes and goes; it's not always there.

Rupert Spira

Only This Exists

There is no permanent state of clarity. We don't wake up forever. We wake up only now. People have these wonderful experiences of spiritual opening, and that's not it. As soon as they think, "I want this to last forever," they've moved into the future and lost the reality. THIS is it, right now. It's that simple. Only this exists.

Byron Katie

Nothing is Left Out

Ultimately it is recognized that boundlessness is equally present as tension, contraction, dullness, boredom, depression, anxiety, restlessness, agitation, anger, worry, upset, addiction, and all other forms of overcast, cloudy, turbulent, or stormy weather. Nothing is left out. Waking up is not a perpetually sunny day.

Joan Tollifson

That Which Is

You are already that which is.
But your mind is frightened to let go
and still has an idea that something
special should happen.

Tony Parsons

Pretend That There Is

There is never anything to be gained, though
the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.

Alan Watts

I've Fallen in Love

My life isn't always perfect; it's full of highs and lows,
just as I suspect your life is. We share the same dilemmas.
I've fallen in love with my tender, vulnerable, wounded
humanity, just as it is, in all its glorious ambiguity.
I've fallen in love with my wonderful, terrifying,
everyday life, in all its bittersweet splendor.

Tim Freke

A Love Affair With What Is

Nothing changes [after enlightenment].
Eat, shit, grow old. Get cancer.

Scream in pain in the middle of the night.

None of that stops. This isn't about living

in some New Age fantasy world.

This isn't about taking on comforting concepts.

This is reality at its most raw.

Nothing can be blocked out anymore.

It's the end of control.

It's a love affair with what is.

Jeff Foster

Human Frailties

I have never yet met a saint or sage
who did not have some human frailties.

Alan Watts

I Attained Nothing

I truly attained nothing from
complete, unexcelled Enlightenment.

Buddha

Life Couldn't Care Less

Reality is the sum total of all experiences
and doesn't restrict or make preferences
for any particular set. In short,
life just couldn't care less.

Shiv Sengupta

Just Another Lens of Perception

Whether I am awake and aware
or just a hopelessly conditioned person
is of absolutely no real consequence
to reality itself. It is only of consequence
to me and perhaps those with whom
I come into contact. But in truth, all
I am is just another lens of perception.

Shiv Sengupta

They See Enormous Things

I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes. They are small,
but they see enormous things.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Please Take Messages

My ego is stubborn, often drunk, impolite.
My loving: Finely sensitive, impatient, confused.
Please take messages from one to the other,
reply and counter-reply.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Love's Confusing Joy

If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Let's Buy It

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Knocking on a Door

I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door. It opens.
I've been knocking from the inside.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

In the Garden of Mystic Lovers

I, you, he, she, we.
I, you, he, she, we.
In the garden of mystic lovers,
I, you, he, she, we.
In the garden of mystic lovers,
these are not true distinctions.
I, you, he, she, we.

Shams of Tabriz

The Lame Goat

You've seen a herd of goats
going down to the river.

The lame and dreamy goat

brings up the rear.

There are worried faces about that one,

but now they're laughing,

because look, as they return,

that goat is leading!

There are many different kinds of knowing.

The lame goat's kind is a branch

that traces back to the roots of presence.

Learn from the lame goat,

and lead the herd home.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

I Wouldn't Deny

I wouldn't deny this experience
to the One Mind.

Thaddeus Golas

This Needs to Be Said

The awakened perspective is just another perspective

on life. No more valuable, no more significant,

no more extraordinary than any other.

Shiv Sengupta

Whoever Brought Me Here

I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here
will have to take me home.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

We're In the Midst of It

The mystical poet believes, or knows, that
we're in the midst of some enormous creative energy
that makes three hundred billion galaxies and
these flowers and the people in a restaurant,
the unbelievable variety and energy going on
all the time. We're in the midst of it.

Coleman Hawks

Rumi: Mind and Desire Are Not Enough

The mind cannot understand Rumi's poetry.
Neither can desire. Mind and desire are not enough.
There's something else, some other way of knowing,
some deeper part of our being that knows
we're not in grief, that knows we're in eternity,
that sings out of that. That's the mystery, I think,
that cannot be said.

Coleman Hawks

Who Makes These Changes?

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
Chased by a hog.

I plot to get what I want

And end up in prison.

I dig pits to trap others

And fall in.

I should be suspicious

Of what I want.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Just As It Is

Seeking is the movement away from the awareness
that your life is already complete, just as it is.

Byron Katie

Invisible to You

Because you think you know

what love looks like,
what it should or shouldn't be,

it becomes invisible to you.

Byron Katie

Spared From the Desire for Love

If I still believed my thoughts, I would pray for one thing first: to be spared from the desire for love. This desire causes nothing but confusion and misery. It shuts down the awareness of what you already have in reality. It's painful to seek what you can never have outside yourself.

Byron Katie

A Thousand Names for Joy

Living in harmony with
the way things are.

Byron Katie

Nothing More

Nothing more is required of a human being
than to simply be exactly as they are,
in any given moment.

Shiv Sengupta

It Does Not Exist

You have your way. I have my way.
As for the right way, the correct way,
and the only way, it does not exist.

Friedrich Nietzche

The Primary Task of Spiritual Teaching

Many people think that it is the function
of a spiritual teaching to provide answers
to life's biggest questions, but actually
the opposite is true. the primary task
of any good spiritual teaching is not
to answer your questions,
but to question your answers.

Adyashanti

What Could Be More Practical?

Suppose somebody showed how we could
truly love one another and be at peace. 
What could be more practical than that?

Anthony de Mello

And Also More

Clients are able to integrate
the vastness of consciousness
with the limitations of personality,
and to reconcile expansion
with contraction. They are themselves
and also ... more.

Judy Cohen

All the World's a Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"

Before You Judge

There's a story behind every person.
There's a reason why they're the way they are.
Think about that before you judge someone.

Unknown

A Process of Subtraction

God is not attained
by a process of addition
to anything in the soul, but
by a process of subtraction.

Meister Eckhart

A Great Stripping Process

Aging and dying share much in common

with spiritual awakening. Both involve a

dissolving of old identities, the disappearance

of future time, the end of the known, and

letting go of absolutely everything.

Aging and dying, like awakening,

are a great stripping process,

a process of subtraction.

Joan Tollifson

Enlightenment vs. Delusion

When the ten thousand things

advance and meet you,

that's called enlightenment.

When you advance and

meet the ten thousand things,

that's called delusion.

Zen Saying

The Expanding Man

This brother is free.
I'll be what I want to be.

Steely Dan

Nothing More Beautiful

There's nothing more beautiful in life
than a failed story. Ah!

Eckhart Tolle

Ways to Be Unhappy

There are two ways of being unhappy:
not getting what you want
and getting what you want.

Eckhart Tolle

Embracing the Difficulty

Practice is not about overcoming human problems. It's not about becoming serene and transcendent. It's about embracing our lives as they really are, and understanding at every point how deep and profound and gorgeous everything is - even the suffering, even the difficulty. So we forgive ourselves for our limitations, and we forgive this world for its pain. We don't say, "That's not pain." It is pain. You don't say, "It's not difficulty." It is difficult. But when we embrace the difficulty we see this is exactly the difficulty we need, and this difficulty is the most beautiful and poignant thing in this world.

Norman Fischer

Just Feel the Time

Sometimes with meditation
we just feel the time,
stop reaching out
to grab for things,
and we're just here.

John Tarrant

Man Refuses

Man is the only creature who
refuses to be what he is.

Albert Camus

See God in Everything

It's better to see God in everything
than to try and figure it out.

Neem Karoli Baba

All Paths Lead Away From the Truth

"All paths lead to the truth" is a saying often used to validate different spiritual approaches. I see it differently: "all paths lead away from the truth," because they draw us away from whatever it is we are experiencing in the moment towards something that we feel, or are told, we ought to be experiencing.

Shiv Sengupta

I Am Not Only the Body

I never resonated with the statement,
"I am not the body."
I mean I do resonate with,
"I am not only the body."

Joan Tollifson

Subtraction, Not Addition

God is not attained
by a process of addition
to anything in the soul,
but by a process of subtraction.

Meiser Eckhart

The Whole Point

The whole point is not to transcend what this is
but to exist in harmony with what is and what is
includes all of it. To be a completely aligned and
harmonious being, you have to be OK with
all of it within you.

Shiv Sengupta

We Hate the New

We hate the new, and the sooner we face up to that fact, the better. We don't want new things, particularly when they're disturbing, particularly when they involve change. Most particularly, if they involve saying, "I was wrong."

Anthony de Mello

What Is My Next Step?

No matter what the dilemma in life,
no matter what the challenge - there is
only ONE reality we are ever truly facing.
And that is the reality of the NEXT STEP.
The one we are in the process of taking.

Shiv Sengupta

Nothing is Truly Final

There is always a next step that is relevant and appropriate to whatever situation you are in. Yet, often we are more obsessed with the "final step" and somehow arriving there without realizing that that final step is just another NEXT STEP in a series of next steps. And that there are always steps beyond that final step - for nothing is ever truly final.

Shiv Sengupta

You Never WILL Figure It Out

Nothing is going to happen.
No grand solution is going to arrive
that settles your mind and resolves
your fears once and for all.
You are seeking a solution 
to a problem that doesn't exist.

Shiv Sengupta

Whereon Can the Dust Fall?

Since in reality all is void,
whereon can the dust fall?

Hui Neng

Real Never is Not

That which is unreal never is,
and that which is real never is not.

Krishna

What You Think You Know

You can only be afraid of
what you think you know.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

There Are No Spiritual Paths

Happiness is your nature. The awareness of being as

it is, that is before it is qualified by experience, is

the experience of happiness. You cannot take a journey

to it. You can only take a journey away from it.

In other words, there are no true spiritual paths.

Rupert Spira

No Real Deal?

Most people can't deal with the idea
that there may not be a real deal.

Shiv Sengupta

No Reason

A student, filled with emotion and crying,
implores, "Why is there so much suffering?"

Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason."

Many Possibilities

If your mind is empty,
it is always ready for anything,
it is open to everything.
In the beginner's mind
there are many possibilities,
but in the expert's mind
there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki

Your Last Moment

Treat every moment as your last.
It is not preparation for something else.

Shunryu Suzuki

Like a Parachute

A mind is like a parachute.
It doesn't work
if it is not open.

Frank Zappa

The Further One Gets

The closer one comes to truth,
the further one gets from mind.

James Pierce

The One Thing

Really there's only one way to get some space
between yourself and feelings you don't want,
yourself and tormenting thoughts, your self and
enlightenment (whatever that might be for you).
And that's an open mind. Yet oddly, Don't Know
might be the one thing you haven't tried.

Judy Cohen

Where Wisdom Lives

The mind usually says, "I know, I know, I know."
But the "don't-know mind" is where wisdom lives.

Byron Katie

You Can Learn

You can learn only
if you do not know.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Let Go of the Cliff

In the end, nobody can let go of the cliff for us.
We have to do it for ourselves.

Gary Tzu

To Be Free

To be free is
to know that
one does not know.

wu'hsin

Where You'll End Up

Start with "I don't know."
Why not start where you'll
end up anyway?

Adyashanti

The Most Rare

Those who recognize problems as a human condition
and don't measure happiness by an absence of problems
are the most intelligent kind of humans we know; also,
the most rare.

Wayne Dyer

Truly Intelligent

You can begin to think of yourself as truly intelligent

on the basis of how you choose to feel in the face of

trying circumstances.

Wayne Dyer

Better Off

The more I know
I don't know
the better off I am.

Patty Oneal

All is Well

All mystics - 

no matter what the theology 
and no matter what the religion -
are unanimous on one thing:
All is well.

Anthony de Mello

Namely You

The whole theory of the universe
is directed unerringly to one single
individual - namely you.

Walt Whitman

Happiness Unapproachable

Nothing renders happiness

less approachable than
trying to find it.

June Callwood

Here It Is

Can you imagine how liberating it is to never be
disillusioned again, to never be disappointed again?
You'll never feel let down again. Never feel rejected.
Want to wake up? You want happiness?
You want freedom? Here it is: Drop your false ideas.

Anthony de Mello

All We Have to Do

All we have to do is to be aware of our reactions - 
positive and negative - and let grace do the work of
restoring us to the experience we were born to have.

Don Joseph Goewey

Cause of All Suffering

All suffering is caused by my
identifying myself with something,
whether that something is within me
or outside of me.

Anthony de Mello

What Will Save the World

What will save the world
is not goodwill and tolerance
but clear thinking.

Anthony de Mello

Truth is Essentially Mystery

True tolerance only arises from a keen awareness
of the abysmal ignorance of everyone as far as truth
is concerned. For truth is essentially mystery.
The mind can sense but cannot grasp it,
much less formulate it.

Anthony de Mello

Does This Path Have a Heart?

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront,
to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is
what your heart tells you. Look at every path
closely and deliberately. Try it as many times
as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and
yourself alone, one question.
Does this path have a heart?
If it does, the path is good;
if it doesn't it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda

One Moment at a Time

The final disappearance of insecurity feelings will only come when you have attained that blessed ability of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field to live fully in the present, one moment at a time. The present moment, no matter how painful, is never unbearable.

Anthony de Mello

Enjoy the Present Moment

If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I'm going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.

Anthony de Mello

A Seed of Growth and Liberation

Every painful event contains in itself
a seed of growth and liberation.

Anthony de Mello

Nothing Can Make You Happy

Contrary to what your culture and

religion have taught you, nothing, but

absolutely nothing can make you happy.

Anthony de Mello

Finding the Kingdom

To find the kingdom is the easiest thing

in the world but also the most difficult.
Easy because it is all around you and within you, and
all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it.
Difficult because if you wish to possess the kingdom
you may possess nothing else.

Anthony de Mello

Something Within Yourself

What you are enjoying on the occasion of each thing
and person is something within yourself. The orchestra is

within you and you carry it with you wherever you go.
The things and people outside you merely determine
what particular melody the orchestra will play. And

when there is no one or nothing that has your attention
the orchestra will play a music of its own;
it needs no outside stimulation.

Anthony de Mello

Love Itself

Who would you be in people's presence without
the story that anyone should care about you, ever?
You would be love itself.

Byron Katie

What Does It Mean to Love?

It means to see a person, a thing, a situation,
as it really is and not as you imagine it to be,
and to give it the response it deserves.

Anthony de Mello

The Only One Possible

I wish you a wonderful relationship with yourself.
That is the only one possible, dearest.

Byron Katie

The Finest Act of Love

It is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing. When you serve people you help, support, comfort, alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness you transform and create.

Anthony de Mello

Can You Imagine?

Can you imagine a life in which you refuse to enjoy a single word of approval and appreciation, or to lean on someone's arm; in which you depend on no one emotionally, so no one has the power to make you happy or miserable anymore; you refuse to need any particular person or to be special to anyone or to call anyone your own?

Anthony de Mello

Barrier to Seeing Reality

If you wish to get in touch with the reality of a thing,
the first thing you must understand is that every idea
distorts reality and is a barrier to seeing reality.

Anthony De Mello

Twisted Tree

The twisted tree lives its life, while

the right tree ends up in planks.

Chinese Proverb

Fully Receptive

For love and freedom are only found
when one enjoys each note as it arises,
then allows it to go, so as to be fully receptive
to the notes that follow.

Anthony de Mello

Cure for Loneliness

Loneliness is not cured by human contact,
by contact with human beings. It is cured
by contact with reality. Then you don't miss people,
you enjoy them and you don't miss them.

Anthony de Mello

The Innocent Adult

The child, like the innocent animal, surrenders to its nature to be and become quite simply what it is. Adults who have preserved their innocence also surrender like the child to the impulse of Nature or Destiny without a thought to become somebody or to impress others; but, unlike the child, they rely, not on instinct, but on ceaseless awareness of everything in them and around them; that awareness shields them from evil and brings about the growth that was intended for them by Nature.

Anthony de Mello

Like the Rest of Nature

The first quality that strikes one when one looks into the eyes of a child is its innocence: its lovely inability to lie or wear a mask or pretend to bay anything other than what it is. In this, the child is exactly like the rest of Nature.

Anthony de Mello

See Things for Yourself

Put your books and formulas aside;
dare to abandon your teacher whoever
your teacher may be and see things for yourself.
Dare to look at everything around you without fear
and without formula and it won't be long before you see.

Anthony de Mello

What an Awesome Solitude!

That solitude, that aloneness is Silence.
It is only this Silence that you will see.
And the moment you see you will
abandon every book and guide and guru.

What is it that you will see?

Anything, everything.

Anthony de Mello

What Can Teachers Do?

They can bring to your notice what is unreal,
they cannot show you Reality;
they can destroy your formulas,
they cannot make you see what the formula is pointing to;
they can indicate your error,
they cannot put you in possession of the Truth.

Anthony de Mello

Notice

Other than what you

are thinking and believing,
are you OK? Notice.

Byron Katie

How Are Things Going?

Outside of your own thoughts,
how are things going?

Dan Metevier (paraphrasing Byron Katie)

A Shift in Perception

The simplest thing one can say about the experiential knowledge of awakening is that it is a shift in one's perception. This is the heart of awakening. There is a shift of perception from seeing oneself as an isolated individual to seeing oneself, if we have a sense of self at all after this shift, as something much more universal - everything and everyone and everywhere at the same time.

Adyashanti

Beyond All Imagination

In truth, we are not capable of imagining what it is that
we are. Our nature is literally beyond all imagination.
What we are is that which is watching - that consciousness
that is watching us pretending to be a separate person.

Adyashanti

A Remembering

Spiritual awakening is a remembering.
It is not becoming something that we are not.
It is not about transforming ourselves.
It is not about changing ourselves.
It is a remembering of what we are, as if
we'd known it long ago and had simply forgotten.

Adyashanti

Thou Art That

Neti, Neti, Tat Twam Asi
Not This, Not That, Thou Art That

Hindu Saying

The Obstacle is the Way

The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.

Marcus Aurelius

The Rose Has a Gift

The rose has a gift that you lack:
It is perfectly content to be itself.
It has not been programmed from birth,
as you have been, to be dissatisfied
with itself, so it has not the slightest urge
to be anything other than what it is.

Anthony de Mello

The Royal Road

The royal road to mysticism and to Reality does not pass
through the world of people. It passes through the world
of actions that are engaged in for themselves without
an eye to success or to gain.

Anthony de Mello

You're You

You're neither OK
nor not OK.
You're you.

Anthony de Mello

The Root of Suffering

The resistance to the unpleasant situation
is the root of suffering.

Ram Dass

Experiencing It

To accept some idea of truth
without experiencing it is
like a painting of a cake 
on paper you cannot eat.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Seek to Understand

Wise men don't judge - 
they seek to understand.

Wei Wu Wei

Seek Nothing

To seek is to suffer.
To seek nothing is bliss.

Bodhidharma

If You Are at Peace

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

Lao Tzu

Reality As It Is

To think in terms of either pessimism

or optimism oversimplifies the truth.

The problem is to see reality as it is.

Thich Nhat Hanh

No Nuisance

The feeling that any task is a nuisance
will soon disappear if it is done in mindfulness.

Thich Nhat Hanh

You Will Be Freed

It is only when you drop your beliefs, your fears,
and the attachments that breed them that you
will be freed from the insensitivity that makes you
so deaf and blind to yourself and to the world.

Anthony de Mello

Not Both

You must choose between
your attachment and happiness.
You cannot have both.

Anthony de Mello

Peace is a Gift

Peace is a gift.
We cannot produce it.
We cannot create it.
We dispose our hearts
to receive it.

Anthony de Mello

This Too

This too will

pass away.

Anthony de Mello

Our Peace

In His will
is our peace.

Dante Alighieri

Peace is Found

Peace is found
in yes.

Anthony de Mello 

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Where the Work Is

If there is anything - any person, any behavior,
any circumstance, any situation, any place,
anything that you do not see as God,
that's where the work is.

Byron Katie

Where is God Found?

God is found
in life.

Anthony de Mello

We Cannot Know

Because we cannot know what God is,
but only what He is not, we cannot consider
how He is but only how He is not.

Thomas Aquinas

Silence: Way to God

Any way to God has to be
a way through silence.

Anthony de Mello

The Shortest Distance

A story is the shortest distance
between a human being and truth.

Anthony de Mello

What is Prayer?

Transformation that comes about
from seeing one's illusions and
dropping them.

Anthony de Mello

True Happiness

True happiness is uncaused. When nothing can hurt you, 

no event, no person, no thing, you're happy. What do you

do to be happy? Nothing. You don't do anything, you drop

something. You drop an illusion. You drop a wrong idea.

How do you drop it? By seeing that it is wrong.

Anthony de Mello

The Person's Own Heart

In all the universe there is nothing so cruel as nature.
There is no escape from it and yet it isn't nature that
does the damage but the person's own heart.

Chinese Saying (per Anthony de Mello)

Unobstructed

When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight.

When the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing.

When the palate is unobstructed, the result is taste.

When the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom and happiness.

When the heart is unobstructed, the result is joy and love.

Chinese Saying (per Anthony de Mello)

Are You Enlightened?

How would I know?
How would you know?
What does it matter?

Anthony de Mello

Life Becomes Beautiful

When you're ready to exchange your delusions for reality,

when you're ready to exchange your dreams for facts,

that's the way you find it all. That's where life finally

becomes meaningful. Life becomes beautiful.

Anthony de Mello

Absolute Cooperation

Enlightenment is absolute cooperation
with the inevitable.

Anthony de Mello

All by Themselves

When we listen with an open mind,
things have a way of becoming clear
all by themselves.

Anthony de Mello

Not By Your Ego, But By Reality

Awareness releases reality to change you,
but you have to experience it. Step by step,
let whatever happens happen. Real change
will come when it is brought about -
not by your ego, but by reality.

Anthony de Mello

How Do I Do This?

Here's how. Answer the questions that arise for you, yourself.

Is there a self? Are you everything, or nothing? Do you die? What is consciousness? What are you? Do you have free will? What cares about any of that? What cares if you have free will? What wants to know?

Ask yourself. Answer yourself.

Judy Cohen

Carry On

All those teachings are for those
who think they are something.
Know you are nothing and carry on.

Anonymous

I vs. Me

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal if I am split into two pieces. There must be a good "I" who is going to improve the bad "me." "I," who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward "me," and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently "I" will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make "me" behave so badly.

Alan Watts

The Real Being

The real being, with no status,
is always going in and out
through the doors of your face.

Lin Chi (Linji)

What is His Name?

And God said unto Moses,
I Am That I Am.

Exodus 3:14

Nothing Happens Next

Nothing happens next.
This is it.

Zen Saying

Never Anything

There is never anything but the present,
and if one cannot live there,
one cannot live anywhere.

Alan Watts

Selfing

If hurting is happening,
there's "selfing" going on.

Judy Cohen

Dissolve into the Observing

The observer spends a lifetime
in conflict with the observed.
This is resolved when
the observer is also the observed and
the two dissolve into the observing.

wu'hsin

Entirely Undefinable Something

Only words and conventions
can isolate us from the entirely
undefinable something
which is everything.

Alan Watts

A Great Doorway

There may be a surprising freedom in acknowledging that dependence on reflection and so-called other people's so-called thoughts is the only thing that proves us. There may be a surprising freedom in seeing that no image, thought, or persona can make nothing into something. Noticing how you try to control other people's thoughts could turn out to be a great doorway into discovering what's real and what isn't.

Judy Cohen

Unlikely You Would Care

If you were the last human on earth,
it's unlikely you would care if
your underwear was folded.

Judy Cohen

A Flower Blooms

From the withered tree,
a flower blooms.

Shoyo Roku (The Book of Serenity)

My Dog Doesn't Worry

My dog doesn't worry
about the meaning of life.

Charlotte Joko Beck

Enlightenment Won't Either

Most people who come to the Zen Center
don't think that a Cadillac will do it, but
they think enlightenment will.

Charlotte Joko Beck

So Unnatural

Our lives are so unnatural that to do a practice like Zen
is, in the beginning, extremely difficult. But once we begin
to get a glimmer that the problem in life is not outside
ourselves, we have begun to walk down this path.

Charlotte Joko Beck

Dropping All That

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is
the absence of something. All your life you have
been going forward after something, pursuing
some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.

Charlotte Joko Beck

The Only Obstacle

The only obstacle to your enlightenment
is the belief that you are not enlightened.

Ramana Maharshi

No More Pain

I have found the builder,
and I will not build
the house of pain again.

The Buddha

A Question the Buddha Asked Himself

Are you afraid of this happiness?

The Buddha

Looks Like Love

When the beliefs fall away,
what is left really does
look like love.

John Tarrant

Without a Problem

Without a problem, you wouldn't need anything.
You could lose your citizenship in the society
of people who need things.

John Tarrant

Without a Neat Story

When a problem is intractable and
you cannot conceive of a solution to it,
you will just have to live through it
without a neat story about how it is
to be solved.

John Tarrant

Start Living

When we stop wishing
we can start living.

Cindy Lora-Renard

Identifying With the Background

I had always identified with the foreground of life,
but now I was identifying with the background.

Brian Howlett

Silence is More Suitable

Silence is more suitable to Zen
than eloquence.

Old Saying

Advice to Poets

Learn about pines from the pines,
and about bamboo from the bamboo.

Matsuo Basho

What They Are

What if events don't have to be
anything other than what they are?

John Tarrant

Without Armor

Instead of wrestling toward
what you are convinced ought to be going on,
it might be refreshing to approach events without armor,
meeting their nakedness with your nakedness.
That might also be a kind approach, since it sets up
no conflict in your own heart.

John Tarrant

Not Difficult

 Zhaozhou often quoted this saying by Sengcan:
"The great way is not difficult
if you just don't pick and choose."

Working with the Koan

When you work with the koan,
what you are either with or without
is your map, your cherished beliefs,
your story about how your life
should be at the moment
in which you find yourself.

John Tarrant

Those Who Discriminate

Everything is suffering

for those who discriminate.

Patanjali (Yoga Sutras)

This Practice Continues Forever

When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves.
That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.
This practice continues forever.

Shunryu Suzuki

A Confidence

The path is founded in the deepening of your practice,
and in a confidence that's not confident that you've got
all the answers. It's a confidence in being on the path.

John Tarrant

No Difference

We are free when there is no difference
between ourselves and the universe.

John Tarrant

Highly Personal Business

Spirituality is a highly personal business.
It is a person's unique relationship with reality.

Yet, the moment it is taken out of the person

and objectified in the form of a system of thought

it is no longer a personal affair.

Shiv Sengupta

Nowhere You Can't Go

Step aside from all thinking,
and there is nowhere you can't go.

Seng-ts'an (Third Founding Teacher of Zen)

A Lover of What Is

The more clearly you understand yourself

and your emotions, the more you become

a lover of what is.

Baruch Spinoza

Disturbed by Our Thoughts

We are disturbed not by what happens to us,
but by our thoughts about what happens.

Epictetus

The Most Important Question

The most important question a person can ask is,
"Is the Universe a friendly place?"

Albert Einstein

How Soft a Second Is

When the wind winks
and the leaves laugh
I see how soft
a second is.

Chalon Bridges

No Problems

There are no problems, only situations - 
to be dealt with now or to be left alone 
and accepted as part of the "isness" 
of the present moment until they change
or can be dealt with.

Eckhart Tolle

Getting Rid of Something

Spirituality is never about getting something.
It is always about getting rid of something.

Unknown (quoted by Michael A. Singer)

You Are the One Who Hears It

There is nothing more important to true growth than 
realizing that you are not the voice of the mind -
you are the one who hears it. If you don't understand
this, you will try to figure out which of the many things
the voice says is you.

Michael A. Singer

Honoring Reality

A wise person doesn't renounce the world;
they honor the reality that's unfolding in front of them.

Michael A. Singer

Today I Am Wise

Yesterday I was clever,
so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise,
so I am changing myself.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

No Preferences

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.

Seng Ts'an, the Third Patriarch of Zen

Most Significant Credential

Of all my credentials as a therapist,
my most significant is that
I'm a card-carrying member
of the human race.

Lori Gottlieb

Let Go of Controlling

We can't understand the nature of reality
until we let go of controlling our experience.

Tara Brach

The Moment in Front of You

The moment in front of you that you deal with, have so much trouble with at any given time, the moment in front of you is not bothering you. You are bothering yourself about the moment in front of you.

Michael A. Singer