The Bravest Thing

Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.

Brene Brown

The Most Important Thing

Remember, we are all affecting

the world every moment,

whether we mean to or not.

Working on our own consciousness

is the most important thing that

we are doing at any moment,

and being love is a supreme creative act.

Ram Dass

When We Are Being Love

When we are being love, we extend outward an environment that allows people to act in different, more loving and peaceful ways than they are used to behaving.

Ram Dass

If I Can See the Soul

If I can see the soul that happens to have incarnated into a person that I don't care for, then my consciousness becomes an environment in which he or she is free to come up for air if he or she wants to.

Ram Dass

My Only Interest

I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love. In our culture we think of love as a relational thing: "I love you" and "You are my lover." But while the ego is built around relationship, the soul is not. It wants only to be love. It's a true joy, for example, to turn someone whom you didn't initially like into the Beloved.

Ram Dass

It's In the Being

The most important aspect of love is not
in giving or the receiving; it's in the being.

Ram Dass

Meditate Like Christ

Meditate like Christ.
When he was crucified,
He felt love, not pain.
He lost Himself in love.

Neem Karoli Baba ("Maharaj-ji")

You are a Vehicle

You are a vehicle for what wants to happen,
not for what you want to happen.

Adyashanti

To Choose One's Own Way

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude
in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Viktor Frankl

Happiness Thwarted

It is the very pursuit of happiness
that thwarts happiness.

Viktor Frankl

Does This Path Lead to Love

When a spiritual path comes into
your life, one question you can ask is
"Does this path lead to love?"

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Dragging Us to God

in the end
a person tires of everything
except heart's desiring,
soul's journeying

sultan, saint, pickpocket;
love has everyone by the ear
dragging us to God
by secret ways.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

We Cannot Know

We cannot know. All we can do is try to
listen carefully and with full attention to
each voice as it addresses the divine.

Huston Smith

A Place in Your Garden

Give your enemy
a place in your garden.

Sufi Saying

The Path Begins

The Path begins with
what you don't like.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

In Its Deepest Being

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and
brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest
being something helpless that wants help from us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

If Only I Could Remember

At sixty-five I can do whatever I did when I was thirty-five,
if only I could remember what those things were.

Billy Crystal

No Irritable Reaching

Let's imagine Robert Johnson is living in a tent in a desert and he becomes thirsty. He waits until a spring comes up through the sand just in front of his chair. That's the kind of person he is. There is no irritable reaching for an answer, a resolution, a career, the next step.

Robert Bly

Interior Woman

A man will treat a woman almost exactly the way he treats his own interior feminine. In fact, he hasn't the ability to see a woman, objectively speaking, until he has made some kind of peace with his interior woman.

Robert Johnson

Can't Save Them All

It's not a therapist's job
to save every marriage.

Michele Weiner-Davis

Half Lifes

The first half of life is devoted to the cultural process - gaining one's skills, raising a family, disciplining one's self in a hundred different ways; the second half of life is devoted to restoring the wholeness (making holy) of life.

Robert Johnson

Wild and Precious Life

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Something That Cannot Be Given

You can have the courage to climb the mountain,
swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of
the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but
the courage to be on your own, to stand on your
two solid feet, is something that cannot be given
by somebody.

U.G. Krishnamurti

Opiate of the Masses

Gender, not religion,
is the opiate of the masses.

Erving Goffman

It Is Easier

It is easier to build strong children
than to repair broken men.

Frederick Douglass

Yes and No

All of you are in the middle of a life story, and
your story is being shaped by what you are saying
yes to and what you are saying no to.

Sarri Gilman

Staircase

As my muscles weakened,
my writing became stronger.
As I slowly lost my speech,
I gained my voice.
As I diminished, I grew.
As I lost so much,
I finally started to find myself.

Neil Selinger

Becoming Young

It takes a long time
to become young.

Pablo Picasso

Man's Search for Meaning

Everything you have in life can be taken from you except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. This is what determines the quality of the life we've lived - not whether we've been rich or poor, famous or unknown, healthy or suffering. What determines our quality of life is how we relate to these realities, what kind of meaning we assign them, what kind of attitude we cling to about them, what state of mind we allow them to trigger.

Viktor Frankl

The Third Act

When you're inside oldness, as opposed to
looking at it from the outside, fear subsides.

Jane Fonda

Without Love I Am Nothing

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

As a Loose Garment

Wear the world as a loose garment,
which touches us in a few places
and there lightly.

St. Francis of Assisi

All is Vanity

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher;
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

Ecclesiastes 1:2

Forfeiting One's Soul

For what does it profit a man
to gain the whole world and
forfeit his soul?

Jesus Christ (Mark 8:36)

The Way of Love

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Context is God

Content is king,
but context is God.

Gary Vaynerchuk

No Greater Lesson

To ignore context is the greatest source of catastrophe for every generation of man ... There is no greater lesson that needs to be learned to reduce human suffering and bring ignorance to an end.

David Hawkins

Dare to Alter the Context

Life does not change if you only modify
the content. Your life will change if you
will dare to alter the context.

Santosh Kalwar

Leave the Raft Behind

My teaching is like a raft. A raft is meant to
carry you across the river; once you have
crossed the river, you leave the raft behind
on the shore.

The Buddha

Everybody is the Guru

When you know how to listen
everybody is the guru.

Ram Dass

What You Meet

What you meet in another being is
the projection of your own level of evolution.

Ram Dass

Start Where You Are

Start from where you are -
not where you wish you were.
The work you're doing becomes
your path.

Ram Dass

Be All There

Wherever you are,
be all there.

Ram Dass

Every Person a Soul

Once you get to your soul, then
every person you look at is a soul.

Ram Dass

Work to be Done

A feeling of aversion or attachment
toward something is your clue that
there's work to be done.

Ram Dass

Your Path

Don't compare your path with anybody else's.
Your path is unique to you.

Ram Dass

We Are Enough

Our whole spiritual transformation
brings us to the point where we realize
that in our own being, we are enough.

Ram Dass

Rest in Awareness

To rest in awareness also means to stand free of the prejudices of mind that come from identifying with cherished attitudes and opinions. We can listen without being busy planning, analyzing, theorizing ... and especially judging. We can open into the moment fully in order to hear it all.

Ram Dass

The Beloved in Each Person

When we see the Beloved in each person,
it's like walking through a garden, watching
flowers bloom all around us.

Ram Dass

Opposite Things

Across planes of consciousness,
we have to live with the paradox
that opposite things can be
simultaneously true.

Ram Dass

Your Deepest Truth

The spiritual journey is not about acquiring
something outside yourself. Rather, you are
penetrating the layers and veils to return to
the deepest truth of your own being.

Ram Dass

It Will Not Matter

When your center is firm, when your faith is
strong and unwavering, then it will not matter
what company you keep.

Ram Dass

The More I'm Free

The freer I get, the higher I go.
The higher I go, the more I see.
The more I see, the less I know.
The less I know, the more I'm free.

Ram Dass

Let It Go

The world is won by
those who let it go.

Ram Dass

You May Protest

You may protest if you can love
the person you are protesting against
as much as you love yourself.

Ram Dass

Cosmic Humor

Cosmic humor, especially about
your own predicament, is
an important part of your journey.

Ram Dass

Know Your Zip Code

Just because you are seeing divine light,
experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing
with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to
not know your zip code.

Ram Dass

The Secret

The secret isn't that you're not being told.
The secret is that you're not able to hear.

Ram Dass

Exquisite Instrument

The Ego is an exquisite instrument.
Enjoy it, use it - just don't get lost in it.

Ram Dass

I Don't Know

The critical point in all spiritual work is the capacity
to be willing to tell the truth. Very often that truth is
"I don't know," and out of the "I don't know" comes
the willingness to surrender to God.

David Hawkins

The Care of God

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the care of God as we understood Him.

Third of Twelve Steps

The Best Thing in You

Be careful, lest in casting our your demon
you exorcise the best thing in you.

Friedrich Nietzche

Culture is Not Your Friend

Culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people's convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, and what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you, it disempowers you, it uses and abuses you. None of us are well-treated by culture.

Terence McKenna

Neurosis Cauldron

The American family is what keeps American
psychotherapy alive and well. This is a cauldron
for the production of neurosis.

Terence McKenna

The Labyrinth is Fully Known

We have not even to risk the adventure alone,
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is fully known. We have only to
follow the thread of the hero path. And where
we had thought to find an abomination, we
shall find a god. And where we thought to
slay each other, we shall slay ourselves. And
where we had thought to travel outward, we
shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone, we
shall be with all the world.

Joseph Campbell

Exactly As We Are

Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are
gives us all the best opportunity for growing into
the healthiest of people.

Fred Rogers

Hero With a Thousand Faces

I don't think it would help you to
change the system, but it would help
you to live in the system as a human being.

Joseph Campbell

Yet Somewhat Alone

At first you have to be alone by pulling back from people, before you can understand what the game is. Then, finally you see that the game is to be with people, yet always be somewhat alone.

Ram Dass

Equal Pleasure

Awareness is not driven by goals but instead values
the capacity for equal pleasure in all circumstances.

David Hawkins

Find the Barriers

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all
the barriers within yourself that
you have built against it.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Being With

To the ego, gains lie without; to the spirit, they are internal, for the ever-present joy of existence is independent of content or form. To the spirit, a sunny day or a rainy day are the same. Awareness enjoys qualities rather than grasping at form. Thus it can enjoy "being with," without having to own or control.

David Hawkins

Radiance of Unconditional Love

Much like the rising of the sea level lifts all ships,
so the radiance of unconditional love within a
human heart lifts all of life.

Fran Grace

Dark Night of the Soul

The dark night of the soul is from trying to push the envelope. You're trying to push the unconditional love when you haven't let go of what is holding you back from unconditional love.

David Hawkins

Source of One's Power

Putting one's survival on something outside oneself therefore results in states of powerlessness, victimhood, and weakness by virtue of having projected the source of one's power outside of oneself.

David Hawkins

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to
eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you
eat from it you will certainly die."

Genesis 2:16-17

Attracting Reflections

Everybody is like a magnet. You attract to yourself reflections of that which you are. If you're friendly, then everybody else seems to be friendly too.

David Hawkins

The Nature of Life

All judgment reveals itself to be self-judgment in the end, and when this is understood a larger comprehension of the nature of life takes its place.

David Hawkins

Interconnected Universe

In this interconnected universe, every improvement
we make in our private world improves the world
at large for everyone.

David Hawkins

Removing Impediments

The simple decision to be kind, forgiving, and
compassionate to all life in all of its expressions,
including one's own self, is a scalpel that is capable of
removing the major impediments to spiritual progress.

David Hawkins

Simple Kindness

Simple kindness to one's self and all that lives is
the most powerful transformational force of all.

David Hawkins

Readiness for the Journey

The readiness to initiate the journey cannot be forced nor can people be faulted if it has not occurred in them as yet. The level of consciousness has to have advanced to the stage where such an intention would be meaningful and attractive.

David Hawkins

The Spiritual Quest Commences

At some point, the illusion breaks down and the opening for the start of the spiritual quest commences. The quest turns from without to within and the search for answers begins.

David Hawkins

Surrender is a Constant Process

Surrender is a constant process of not resisting or clinging to the moment but instead continuously turning it over to God. The attention is thus focused on the process of letting go and not on the content of the "what" that is being surrendered.

David Hawkins

Passionate for God

Be passionate for God, not for belief systems. That is the only real decision that has to be made and can be applied to any and all situations. The question is always whether to be at the effect of the world or aligned with the Truth of God instead. The search for enlightenment is different from that of seeking worldly success.

David Hawkins

What Pain Tells Us

Pain tells us that we have put our survival onto something
that is a violation of some principle of consciousness.

David Hawkins

Spiritual Evolution

Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing
obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new.

David Hawkins

How the World Sees Us

The world can only see us
as we see ourselves.

David Hawkins

What Love Is

Love is misunderstood to be an emotion;
actually, it is a state of awareness, a way
of being in the world, a way of seeing
oneself and others.

David Hawkins

Changing the World

We change the world not by what we say or do,
but as a consequence of what we have become.

David Hawkins

Enhancing One's Power

The only way to enhance one's power in the world is
by increasing one's integrity, understanding, and capacity
for compassion.

David Hawkins

What a Relief!

I just realized that I don't have to have
an opinion about everything - what a relief!

David Hawkins

Forgive Them

Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.

Jesus Christ (Luke 23:34)

It's All Good

When there's no story, no past or future,
nothing to worry about, nothing to do,
nowhere to go, no one to be, it's all good.

Byron Katie

Hang Up the Phone

Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope. He goes away and works on what he has seen.

Alan Watts

Free and In Love

Ultimately I would rather be
free and in love than be right.

Ram Dass

Who Am I?

The thought "Who am I?" will
destroy all other thoughts, and
like the stick used for stirring
the burning pyre, it will itself
in the end get destroyed. Then,
there will arise Self-realization.

Ramana Maharshi

My Work on Myself

When I'm locked in a situation in a relationship with someone, it isn't that they have done something to me. They're just doing what they're doing. If I get caught up in judging, the responsibility lies with me, not with them. It becomes my work on myself.

Ram Dass

Realization

Enlightenment is the realization
that enlightenment doesn't exist.

Huang-po

Grasping a Pearl

It's not that I'm not joyful.
But it's as though I have
grasped a pearl in a pile of shit.

Tung-shan

Moving in Perfect Harmony

However wild the form of the awareness may seem from the outside, from the inside it moves in perfect harmony. The boat keeps rowing itself gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily - no dreamer, just the dream. (And not even that.)

Stephen Mitchell

In the Presence of Suffering

You and I are on earth at this moment in bodies and have a curriculum, and that curriculum has to do with doing, as our hearts dictate, what we can to relieve suffering. Ultimately, what we can do to relieve suffering is to be that which is able to be in the presence of suffering without creating more suffering.

Ram Dass

Seeing What Is

To the extent that you hold a model of
how it used to be or how it should be,
you are preventing yourself from seeing
what is.

Ram Dass

Seeking Happiness Inside

Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.

Ramana Maharshi

Be Still

Your duty is to be and not to be this or that.
"I am that I am" sums up the whole truth. The
method is summed up in the words "Be still."
What does stillness mean? It means destroy
yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause
for trouble. Give up the notion that "I am so and so."
All that is required to realize Self is to be still.
What can be easier than that?

Ramana Maharshi

Who We Think We Are

The way I see it is that there are states of consciousness that are always available to us if we have not veiled ourselves from them through our attachment to our own thoughts. All of it is always available to all of us - but whether we know that or not (or, better, the degree to which we know it) depends on who we think we are.

Ram Dass

See What Remains

Let come what comes,
let go what goes.
See what remains.

Ramana Maharshi

Always at Home

We can travel a long way and do many things,
but our deepest happiness is not born from
accumulating new experiences. It is born from
letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing
ourselves to be always at home.

Sharon Salzberg

Cut Off the Ego

Is it not a wonder of wonders,
the quest "Who am I?" is the ax
with which to cut off the ego.

Ramana Maharshi

Silence

Silence is also conversation.

Ramana Maharshi

Renouncing the Fruits of Action

You have a right to your actions,
but never to your action's fruits.
Act for the action's sake,
And do not be attached to inaction.

Self-possessed, resolute, act
without any thought of results,
open to success or failure.

Bhagavad Gita

Let Go

The essence of Hinduism is
"Let go."

Stephen Mitchell

Beginning of Love

The beginning of love is the will
to let those we love be themselves,
the resolution not to twist them to
fit our own image.

Thomas Merton

The Witness

The witness just sees it all happening.
The witness is not evaluative.
It does not judge your actions,
it merely notes them.

Ram Dass

Need or Use of Worrying?

If you can solve your problem,
then what is the need of worrying?
If you cannot solve it, then what is
the use of worrying?

Shantideva

Dance of Interactions

Our interactions with one another
reflect a dance between love and fear.

Ram Dass

How It All Is

The more I center myself and meditate,
the more I hear how it all is. Even if I
don't hear how it all is, the more I am
how it all is. If there's an uneven place
in me, all I have to do is work on myself.
As I give up attachment to knowing how
it all works, then the actions come into
harmony with the Tao.

Ram Dass

Developing a Witness

The first step of karma yoga, to get free
of the attachments to your own life is
to develop a witness.

Ram Dass

Nothing Worth Holding Onto

The entire teaching of Buddhism
can be summed up in this way:
Nothing is worth holding on to.

Jack Kornfield

Letting There Be Room

We think that the point is to pass
the test or overcome the problem,
but the truth is that things don't
really get solved. They come
together and they fall apart. Then
they come together again and fall
apart again. It's just like that. The
healing comes from letting there be
room for all of this to happen: room
for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Pema Chodron

Better to Live Imperfectly

It is better to live your own destiny
imperfectly than to live an imitation
of somebody else's life with perfection.

Bhagavad Gita

A Man of Knowledge

A man of knowledge has
no honor, no dignity, no family, no name,
no country, but only life to be lived, and
under these circumstances his only tie to
his fellow man is his controlled folly.

Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan

Hearing It Clearly

The basic institution that is between God and the world is the individual human heart. It's not a set of rules. Rules and rituals of religions are useful when you can't tune to your own heart. But they are only techniques to use along the way until you really hear it clearly.

Ram Dass

All You Would See

The only things you're seeing as
you walk down the street are the
projections of your own attachments.
Otherwise, all you would see is God.

Ram Dass

Only True Belongings

My actions are my only true belongings.

Thich Nhat Hanh

A Heavy One

You say, "Everything in my life, the highs and the lows,
are all grist for the mill of going home. I will eat it all."
And it's even farther out than that because at that point
your suffering becomes functional for your awakening.
Your suffering literally becomes grace. That's a heavy one.

Ram Dass

Just Ocean

Even when I think I'm a wave,
I'm just ocean.

Krishna Das

Who Are You?

When I don't know who I am, I serve you.
When I know who I am, I am you.

Lord Hanuman, Hindu Monkey God

We Are Infinite

As souls, we are not under time or space.
We are infinite.

Ram Dass

Everyday Zen

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but
concentration on our usual everyday routine.

Shunryu Suzuki

I Saw and I Know

I saw more than I could know,
and I know more than I could speak.

Black Elk

Imperturbable

Forgiveness is the greatest weapon,
because a saint so armed is imperturbable ...
he can give up anger immediately.

Neem Karoli Baba ("Maharaj-ji")

Quietness Inside

We've got to keep
our quietness inside.

Ram Dass

Hope for Treasure

Where there is ruin, there
is hope for treasure.

Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi

Everyone as Souls

From the point of view of my soul,
I was able to look at everyone as souls,
and I loved each one of them.

Ram Dass

Loving Awareness

Ego is here, in your head, which is
who "I think I am." If you see those
thoughts and then go down to the heart,
the spiritual heart, down there you say,
I am loving awareness.

Ram Dass

Like the Wind

I am like the wind.
No one can hold me.
I belong to everyone.
No one can own me.

Neem Karoli Baba  (Maharaj-ji)

I Do Not Understand

Now, at this stage of my life, I understand just enough about life to understand that I do not understand much of anything.

Anne Lamott

We Come to be Healed

I'm pretty sure that only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way do we come to be healed - which is to say, we come to experience life with a real sense of presence and spaciousness and peace.

Anne Lamott

Let People See You

The book of welcome says,
"Let people see you."

Anne Lamott

Everything We Lose

Everything we lose is Buddhist truth - one more thing that you don't have to grab with your death grip, and protect from theft and decay. It's gone. We can mourn it, but we don't have to get down in the grave with it.

Anne Lamott

The Book of Welcome

There must have been a book - way down there in the slush pile of manuscripts - that somehow slipped out of the final draft of the Bible. That would have been the chapter that dealt with how we're supposed to recover from the criticism session in the Garden, and discover a sense that we're still welcome on the planet ... We have to write that book ourselves.

Anne Lamott

Be Here Now

Remember, Now, Be Here Now
as it's not like it was before.
The past, was, Be Here Now
as it's not what it was before - it was.

Why try to live a life,
that isn't real,
no how.
A mind that wants to wander,
'round a corner,
is an unwise mind.

Now, Is, Be Here Now
and it's not what it was before.
Remember, Now, Be Here Now
as it's not like it was before - it was.

George Harrison

Mindfulness Practice

The basis of the practice is to directly participate
in each moment as it occurs with as much awareness
and understanding as possible.

Stephen Levine

Liking and Disliking

We seldom see without some sense of liking or disliking, no matter how subtle it is. We open and close from sound to sound, taste to taste, smell to smell, sensation to sensation, thought to thought, and feeling to feeling. We like the way the light strikes one side of the ball but dislike the shadow it casts.

Stephen Levine

God's Work

When you do God's work,
the work does it itself.

Neem Karoli Baba  (Maharaj-ji)

Only a Moment

The mind is in a constant state of flux.
No thought, no feeling, no sensation lasts
for more than an instant before it is
transformed into the next state, the next
thought, the next sentence. Our life lasts
only a moment. Note those moments.

Stephen Levine

Know Your Life

To know your life is to know
intimately what you are feeling.

Stephen Levine

It Changes Me

I pray because I can't help myself.
I pray because I'm helpless. I pray
because the need flows out of me
all the time, waking and sleeping.
It doesn't change God.
It changes me.

C.S. Lewis

Be Where You Are

As a psychotherapist, I can help people best
by encouraging them to be where they are.

Thomas Moore

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver

The Answer to Your Prayer

The answer to your prayer is to remember that you're not hungry for food. You're hungry for peace of mind, for a memory ... You're hungry for safety, for a moment when the net of life holds and there is an occasional sense of the world's benevolent order.

Anne Lamott

We Get to Keep Starting Over

God is not a banker or a bean counter. God gives us more, which is so subversive ... God keeps giving, forgiving, and inviting us back ...We get to keep starting over. Lives change, sometimes quickly, but usually slowly.

Anne Lamott

Movement of Grace

The movement of grace from hard to soft,
distracted to awake, mean to gentle again,
is mysterious but essential.

Anne Lamott

Simple vs. Clever

When my guru wanted to compliment me,
he called me simple; when he wished to
chide me, he called me clever.

Ram Dass

A Call to the Heart

Each time we remember to be present, to be mindful,
we soften into the moment. Softening becomes a call to
the heart that it's safe to be alive in the body once again.

Stephen Levine

Love's in Need of Love Today

Love's in need
of love today.
Don't delay.
Send yours in
right away.
Hate's goin' round
breaking many hearts.
Stop it please
before it's gone
too far.

Stevie Wonder

Familiar with Doubt

It is important to become familiar
with doubt sufficiently to be able
to turn toward it instead of away.

Stephen Levine

Fourth Great Prayer

So I prayed: "Help me not be such an ass."
(This is actually the fourth great prayer, which
perhaps we will address at another time.)

Anne Lamott

A Good Time

God's idea of a good time is
to see us picking up litter.

Anne Lamott

The Voice That Will Speak for Us

Last words are as spontaneous as the life that produces them. If we speak now with care and consideration, if we use our words now to express our heart, that is the voice that will speak for us as our awareness gathers to depart.

Stephen Levine

What the Heart Really Needs

Once you see what the heart really needs,
it doesn't matter if you're going to live or die,
the work is always the same.

Noah Levine

What More Can I Give?

Saying and meaning "Thanks"
leads to a crazy thought:
What more can I give?

Anne Lamott

You Get What You Need

You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes you find
you get what you need.

Rolling Stones

Gratitude is Peace

The movement of grace toward gratitude
brings us from the package of self-obsessed
madness to a spiritual awakening.
Gratitude is peace.

Anne Lamott

Fear Leans Backwards

Fear leans backwards into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. Each is a form of attachment, whether "positive" grasping, or "negative" pushing away.

Stephen Levine

Fear of Fear

There is nothing to fear in fear. Enter it. Begin
to relate to it rather than solely from it. Do not
fear fear, soften that compulsive resistance.
Fear of fear is ignorance of fear.

Stephen Levine

When the Time Actually Comes

When the time actually comes,
what is found then will be
what is found now.

Stephen Levine

Bearing the Unbearable

You breathe in gratitude, and you breathe it out, too.
Once you learn how to do that, then you can bear
someone who is unbearable.

Anne Lamott

Misfortunes As Well

A much revered teacher once said that if his students
were going to thank him for their good fortune, then
they had to thank him for what they considered
misfortunes as well.

Stephen Levine

Wow: a Prayer

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it's down to a manageable size and then to file it nicely away, when all we can say in response is "Wow," that's a prayer.

Anne Lamott

Second Wind

Grace can be the experience of a second wind,
when even though what you want is clarity and
resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy
and the strength to hang on.

Anne Lamott

All You Need

In many cases, breath
is all you need.

Anne Lamott

It Takes a Journey

Sometimes it takes a journey
to come home.

Stephen Levine

Whole At Last

When the heart at last acknowledges how much pain there is in the mind, it turns like a mother toward a frightened child. All that remains incomplete seems somehow workable and an unmistakable joy arises at the possibility of becoming whole at last.

Stephen Levine

Prepare Yourself

Remember, friends, as you pass by,
As you are no so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.

Common 18th Century Epitaph

The Better Deal

A good marriage is one in which each spouse
secretly thinks he or she got the better deal.

Anne Lamott

Finding Happiness

I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to
find happiness - it's right in front of me if I'm
paying attention and practicing gratitude.

Brene Brown

What Matters Becomes Apparent

When you live your life as though you're already dead,
life takes on new meaning. Each moment becomes a whole
lifetime, a universe unto itself. When we realize we are
already dead, our priorities change, our heart opens, and
our mind begins to clear of the fog of old holdings and
pretendings. We watch all life in transit, and what matters
becomes instantly apparent: the transmission of love; the
letting go of obstacles to understanding; the relinquish-
ment of our grasping, of our hiding from ourselves.

Stephen Levine

Life Becomes Workable

If we take each teaching, each loss, each gain, each fear, each joy as it arises and experience it fully, life becomes workable. We are no longer a "victim of life." And then every experience, even the loss of our dearest one, becomes another opportunity for awakening.

Stephen Levine

Only Love Would Be Appropriate

If our only spiritual practice were to live as though we
were already dead, relating to all we meet, to all we do,
as though it were our final moments in the world, what
time would there be for old games or falsehoods or
posturing? If we lived our life as though we were already
dead, as though our children were already dead, how much
time would there be for self-protection and the recreation
of ancient mirages? Only love would be appropriate,
only the truth.

Stephen Levine

Standing In It

Those who insist they've got their "shit together"
are usually standing in it at the time.

Stephen Levine

Time Enough

The butterfly counts not
months but moments, and
has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

Ordinary Mind

The ordinary mind creates reality to suit our
misperceptions. None of it really makes sense.
The ordinary mind just pretends it does, so as
not to incite a riot.

Stephen Levine

To Tell the Truth

We hope someday to tell the truth.
But first we have to find out what it is.

Stephen Levine

Service is Joy

I slept and dreamed that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.

Rabindranath Tagore

It's Enough to Know It Works

We don't have to figure out how this all works -
"Figure it out" is not a good slogan. It's enough
to know it does.

Anne Lamott

Our Real Journey

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we
have come to our real work, and that when we no longer
know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is unemployed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

Take In Today

When you are on the knife's edge -
when nobody knows exactly what is
going to happen next, only that it will
be worse - you take in today.

Anne Lamott

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a while lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

Anne Lamott

The Three Essential Prayers

I do not know much about God and prayer, but I have
come to believe, over the last twenty-five years, that
there's something to be said about keeping prayer simple.
Help, thanks, wow.

Anne Lamott