The Next Note

When you hit a wrong note,
it's the next note that
makes it good or bad.

Miles Davis

As We Are

We don't see things as they are.
We see them as we are.

Anais Nin

I Know Nothing

The more I read,
the more I acquire,
the more certain I am
that I know nothing.

Voltaire

We Can Just Watch

You know what I love about this world?
No control. No control. Oh my goodness!
What could be better than that?
We are not the doer. We can just watch.

Byron Katie

Use It to Free You

All life has drudgery to it. In Zen, however,
even while you're washing the dishes,
that's a meditation, that's an act of life.
Sometimes the drudgery itself can
become part of the hero deed.
The point is not to become stuck
in the drudgery, but to use it to free you.

Joseph Campbell

No Sadness Without a Story

Until we know that death is as good as life,
and that it always comes at just the right time,
we're going to take on the role of God without
awareness of it, and it's always going to hurt.
Whenever you mentally oppose what IS, you're going
to experience sadness and apparent separation.
What is IS. You are it.

Byron Katie

We Lost Our Center

Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts.
We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center.
So we lost our center and have to find it again.

Anais Nin

Want Nothing

When you want nothing from anyone else,
you are safe for anyone to be with,
including yourself.

Byron Katie

Everything We Wanted

Everything we wanted is right there in front of us

but when we believe our thoughts, we can't see it.

Byron Katie

Your Guide

In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate
that the way of peace, the way of love and
non-violence is the more excellent way.
Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
So I say to you, walk with the wind,
brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace
and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

John Lewis

There Isn't Any Other

The prison is of the mind -
there isn't any other.

Byron Katie

They Didn't Use Reason

You can't use reason to convince
anyone out of an argument that
they didn't use reason to get into.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Nobody is in Control

Nobody is in control. This stuff is ruled

by the equations of dynamics and chaos.

Now, there may be entities seeking control -

the world bank, the communist party, the rich,

the somebody-or-others - but to seek control is

to take enormous aggravation upon yourself.
Because this process that is underway will take
the control-freak by the short and curly and
throw them against the wall. It's like trying to
control a dreams, you see. The global destiny
of the species is somehow unfolding
with the logic of a dream.

Terence McKenna

Love Without Condition

If your job is to love without condition,
we're all here to push your buttons.

Byron Katie

Wise for the Rest of Your Life

If you don't know, ask.
You will be a fool for the moment,
but a wise man for the rest of your life.

Seneca

The Meaning of Life

The one who plants trees,
knowing he will never sit in their shade,
has at least started to understand
the meaning of life.

Rabindranath Tagore

The Value of an Education

Don't just teach your children to read.
Teach them to question what they read.
Teach them to question everything.
The value of an education is not
the learning of many facts but
the training of the mind to think.

George Carlin

Overwhelming Uncanny Fact of Mere Existence

There is no mission, nor interest to convert, and
yet I believe that if this state of consciousness
could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense
which passes for the serious business of the world
would dissolve in laughter. We should see at once
that the high ideals for which we are killing
and regimenting each other are empty and
abstract substitutes for the unheeded miracles
that surround us - not only in the obvious wonders
of nature but also in the overwhelming uncanny fact
of mere existence.

Alan Watts

Our Brain's Best Guess

We realize with a jolt that what we perceive
is never the world directly, but rather
our brain's best guess at what that world is like,
a kind of internal simulation of an external reality.
Still we bank on the fact that our simulation
is a reasonably decent one.

Amanda Gefter

Insanity

Insanity, in clinical practice as in the popular imagination,

is seen as a state of believing things that are not true and
perceiving things that do not exist.

Louis Sass

You're Just Wondering

When you're having a thought,
there's really nothing wrong with that,
but you can be curious whether
it's true or not. You're not trying
to get rid of it or contradict it,
you're just wondering about it.

John Tarrant

Reality is More Profound and Beautiful

Reality is more profound and beautiful than
my maps of reality and my thoughts about reality.

John Tarrant

The Art of Living

The art of living is neither careless drifting
on the one hand nor fearful clinging
to the past on the other. It consists in being
sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as
utterly new and unique, in having
the mind open and wholly receptive.

Alan Watts

I Don't Know

The most spiritual part of you
is "I don't know."

Byron Katie

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 Nietzsche

Be Nothing

When everyone is
trying to be something,
be nothing.

Shams of Tabriz

You Get Better

Listen. I wish I could tell you it gets better.
But, it doesn't get better. You get better.

Joan Rivers

No Obligation

The universe is under no obligation
to make sense to you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Best Preparation

All my training in how to die
leads me to understand that
what I must do now is to quiet my mind
so I can hear most clearly,
open my heart deeply so
that quality of compassion
and feeling is at its optimum,
and be fully in the present moment.
That's the best preparation I can do
for the moment of death.

Ram Dass

Grace Serves a Purpose

Grace means all your mistakes
now serve a purpose
instead of serving shame.

Brene Brown

Powerful Silence

What could be
a more powerful experience
than silence?

Byron Katie

Forgive What You Do

Here's to the few who forgive what you do,
and the fewer who don't even care.

Leonard Cohen

The Ecstasies of Ordinary Life

As soon as we free ourselves

from the mirage of hurrying time,

we are alive again, as in childhood,

to the ecstasies of ordinary life.

Alan Watts

In Order to Be Understood

Men who think deeply appear to be comedians
in their dealings with others because they always
have to feign superficiality in order to be understood.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The World Inside

The world inside
is larger than
the world outside.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

That's Nirvana

It's only in the moment, you see,
when you fully understand that
your situation as a human being
is completely insoluble -
that there is no answer,
and that you give up looking
for an answer - that's whew!
That's nirvana.

Alan Watts

I Like My Dog

The more I know about people,
the better I like my dog.

Mark Twain

What You Don't Play

Don't play everything
(or every time);
let somethings go by.
What you don't play
can be more important
than what you do.

Thelonius Monk