Reading Archives (Author)
Achieving Peace
A. T. Ariyaratne
When an individual lacks inner peace, domestic harmony is affected. When domestic harmony is lost, peace amongst neighbors too thins out. In this manner, when the inner peace of an individual is los...
​Perspective
Aaron Zehah
A poor man lived with his wife and six children in a very small one-room house. They were always getting in each other's way and there was so little space they could hardly breathe!Finally the man...
Science As Spiritual Practice
Adam Frank
Spiritual endeavor often begins when a direct experience of suffering (or rapture) drives a person out of the confines of self. From there a commitment is established to explore for oneself matters of...
Virtues Are Like Vitamins
Adam Grant
Virtues can be a little bit like vitamins. Vitamins are essential for health. But what if you get more than your body needs? If you take too much Vitamin C, it won’t hurt you. If you overdose on...
Organizing With Love
adrienne maree brown
My favorite life forms right now are dandelions and mushrooms—the resilience in these structures, which we think of as weeds and fungi, the incomprehensible scale, the clarity of identity, excit...
Beyond the Wall of Knowledge
Adyashanti
An intelligent mind realizes its own limitation, and it’s a beautiful thing when it does. When you stop holding on to all of the knowledge, then you start to enter a different state of being. Yo...
Let Everything End
Adyashanti
There is a great momentum of suffering and confusion that every spiritual seeker encounters. It is the momentum of ignorance which manifests as the experience of conflict and confusion and which caus...
Movement of Love
Adyashanti
Love comes from a place of seeing that the truth seems to be manifested and expressed through a human personality for the sake of the evolution of the whole. The love I'm speaking of comes out of the...
Fuel For An Endless Fire
Adyashanti
Most people are in a constant state of struggle with themselves. Tremendously burdened by the past and in constant anticipation of the future, most human beings are rarely able to be fully present fo...
Unproduced Stillness
Adyashanti
Silence, stillness, and awareness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence is itself the eternal witness with...
Truth Comes at a Cost
Adyashanti
If I was to translate the enlightened state down into human terms, I.d have to describe it as contentment. Being nobody, going nowhere, needing no reason to exist. To the ego, that probably sounds a...
To Be In Satsang
Adyashanti
We meet here together to recognize the Truth that is eternal. To be in satsang means to be in association with Truth. In satsang you will ask “Who am I?” or “What am I?”, witho...
Response Vs. Reaction
Adyashanti
When I was 19 and 20, part of what drove my urge to awaken was that we were still in the midst of the Cold War, and it looked as though we might imminently drop bombs on each other. I saw the insanity...
Letting Everything End
Adyashanti
There is a great momentum of suffering and confusion that every spiritual seeker encounters. It is the momentum of ignorance which manifests as the experience of conflict and confusion and which caus...
When the Real Heart Breaks Open
Adyashanti
When the real heart breaks open, the question becomes, "How can one serve the One? How can one be this Truth?" And there's no final answer to that kind of question. It's always in the moment, at every...
That Which is Looking
Adyashanti
Only when you turn attention to awareness itself, there isn't anything behind it. That's what returning to the source means. It means that nothing is next. There's nothing behind it. With a thought th...
Encountering Pure Mystery
Adyashanti
Being your true self, being your true nature, is different than experiencing it with thought. Realize that you are the mystery, and that you can’t really look at the mystery because you are only cap...
The Question Of Being
Adyashanti
Above the entrance to the Oracle of Delphi were written the words, “Know yourself.” Jesus came along and added a sense of urgency and consequence to the ancient idea when he said, “I...
True Meditation
Adyashanti
True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited, impermanent and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bon...
The Question of Being
Adyashanti
Above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi were written the words, “Know Thyself.” Jesus came along and added a sense of urgency and consequence to the ancient idea when he said, “If...
Rest and Be Taken
Adyashanti
When there is deep abundance there is nowhere to abide. There is nowhere to rest or grasp onto and yet there is rest The sky abides yet it never rests. Neither can we say that the sky is not...
Are You Ready To Lose Your World?
Adyashanti
There is a very famous poem written by the third patriarch of Zen, Seng-ts’an, called the Hsin-Hsin Ming, which translates as Verses in Faith Mind. In this poem Seng-ts’an writes these lin...
True Meditation Has No Direction
Adyashanti
True meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer. All methods aiming at achieving a certain state of mind are limited, impermanent, and conditioned. Fascinat...
Along the Thread of our Inner Sincerity
Adyashanti
Sincerity is a word that I often use in teaching to convey the importance of being rooted in the qualities of honesty, authenticity, and genuineness. There can be nothing phony or contrived in our mot...
Applying Realization to Relationships
Adyashanti
Many spiritual seekers have had glimpses of the absolute unity of all existence, but few are capable of or willing to live up to the many challenging implications inherent in that revelation. The reve...
Liberation is Not a Spectator Sport
Adyashanti
The Way of Liberation is a stripped-down, practical guide to spiritual liberation, sometimes called awakening, enlightenment, self-realization, or simply seeing what is absolutely True. It is impossib...
Without Ourselves
Afton Wilder
A clear glass orb floats above the cliff just off the edge representing our conscience, souls, and selves what if it shatters? becoming a puzzle of icy glass and then nothing at all? what i...
Real Freedom
Ajahn Amaro
"Most of the time, however, we find ourselves moving away from that point. That's our habitual reaction to the world -- grasping after things or running away from things. I remember, when I was a...
Open to Any Possibility
Ajahn Amaro
In using thought in this way we are not demanding a fixed or certain answer. We must remain open to any possibility. If something arises, fine. If nothing arises, fine. You are consulting the oracle ...
It All Goes Wrong Anyway
Ajahn Brahm
Wherever you live -- in a monastery, in a city, or on a quiet tree-lined street -- you will always experience problems and difficulties from time to time. This is just the nature of life. So when you ...
Seeing Fully
Ajahn Brahm
We were poor monks who needed buildings. We couldn't afford to employ a builder — the materials were expensive enough. So I had to learn how to build: how to prepare the foundations, lay con...
Quotes
Ajahn Chah
"Only one book is worth reading: the heart." "Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with mustache. You won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for y...
Love Needs to be Constantly Cleansed
Ajahn Jayasaro
In the stories that I cherished in my youth, happy endings almost always involved some kind of love, and I began to observe that in “real life” love is not always a guarantee of happiness ...
Trapped By Views
Ajahn Pasanno
We recognize that whatever comes up is just a mental formation within the mind, just a thought or just a perception. We can have a perception about something and realize that it's impermanent, uns...
Social Action
Ajahn Pasanno
To understand what social action is, we must realise that it is not a case of 'me with society around me' as if the two were self-sufficient things; the two are interrelated. What we bring to the soc...
Understanding and Cultivating Silence
Ajahn Sumedho
Just by exploring this you really get to understand what [self] is, how you become a personality and also to see that when there is no person there is still awareness. It’s an intelligent awaren...
Cleaning the Window
Ajahn Sumedho
We've never really accepted boredom as a conscious state. As soon as it comes into the mind we start looking for something interesting, some-thing pleasant. But in meditation we're allowing boredom ...
Trust in the Awareness
Ajahn Sumedho
‘Meditation’ can mean all kinds of things. It’s a word that includes any kind of mental practices, good or bad. But when I use this word, what I’m mainly using it for is that s...
Maintaining Vision, While Focusing
Ajahn Thanasanti
It seems that the key to the practice is maintaining vision and focus. Vision keeps an overview of what one is doing and the greater context in mind. Focus is concerned with the specific task at hand....
Invisibility In A Time Of Transparency
Akiko Busch
What is the difference between being invisible and just landing in a blind spot? In the woods no more than an hour, I am struck anew by invisibility, and its improvisational choreography, as a nece...
Stop Eating Our Corn!
Akinori Kimura
[ Fascinated by machinery, a Japanese farmer bought a big foreign tractor to grow his corn and apples in northern Japan. Thirty years ago he had a conversion, however, to growing organically, a conv...
Embracing the Mystery of Uncertainty
Alan Briskin
A Zen parable captures the mysterious connection between attending to our own consciousness and the external events that enfold us. A respected teacher was asked by members of a village if he co...
Restoring Balance and Meaning in Ourselves
Alan Briskin
During a time of great drought, a Taoist master was asked by members of a village if he could help bring rain to their dry fields. They confessed trying many other approaches before reaching out to hi...
Preparing For The Extraordinary: An Essential Practice
Alan Briskin
Preparing for the extraordinary is one of the [...] essential practices of collective wisdom. It requires clear intention and mindful preparation for achieving a greater felt sense of connection...
Always Had It, Always Will
Alan Cohen
Not this crude leather; luminous beings are we! - Yoda What would you do if someone swore that you knew the secret of life and put you on a stage to tell it? The Totally Hidden Video television sh...
The Main Thing
Alan Cohen
The sage Nasrudin stood on the bow of a ferryboat next to a pompous professor. "Have you ever studied astronomy?" asked the professor. "I can't say that I have," answered the mystic. "Then you h...
Do You Remember Your Song?
Alan Cohen
When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recog...
Turn on the Light
Alan Cohen
Improving our lives might just be simple, if we let it. We can upgrade all kinds of old patterns and situations in a much shorter time than it took to create them. Before we can do that, however, we...
You Play The Piano
Alan Watts
The existence, the physical universe is basically playful. There is no necessity for it whatsoever. It isn’t going anywhere. That is to say, it doesn’t have some destination that it ought ...
True Splendor of Science
Alan Watts
The true splendor of science is not so much that it names and classifies, records and predicts, but that it observes and desires to know the facts, whatever they may turn out to be. However much it ma...
One Has No Self To Love
Alan Watts
Love that expresses itself in creative action is something much more than an emotion. It is not something which you can “feel” and “know,” remember and define. Love is the orga...
Who Wants To Be A Philosopher?
Alan Watts
Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself. Other creatures may love and laugh, talk and think, but is seems to be that the special peculiarity of human beings is...
The World Mirrors The Soul And The Soul Mirrors The World
Alan Watts
If you sit still for a while, completely relaxed, and let your thoughts run on, let your mind think of whatever it likes, without interfering, without making suggestions and without raising any kind o...
Become What You Are
Alan Watts
Begin with the practice of concentration, that is, of attentive looking. It is as if to say, "If you want to know what reality is, you must look directly at it and see for yourself. But this needs a c...
Illusion of Oneself
Alan Watts
"We need a new experience -- a new feeling of what it is to be 'I.' The lowdown (which is, of course, the secret and profound view) on life is that our normal sensation of self is a hoax, or, at best...
Everything Human Is Natural
Alan Watts
Man is as much attached to nature as a tree, and though he walks freely on two legs and is not rooted in the soil, he is by no means a self-sufficient, self-moving, and self-directing entity. For his ...
Hermits in New York
Alan Watts
Let's take hermits. People today think being a hermit is a very unhealthy thing to do. Very antisocial, doesn't contribute anything to everybody else - because everybody else is busy contributing lik...
Money is not Wealth
Alan Watts
Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the...
Making Friends with the Present Moment
Alan Zulch
Some months ago, for three successive nights, I was awakened by three insights that came to me – persistently and repeatedly – one per night. The first night's message was: "Only the ...
Thank You Silence
Alanis Morissette
how bout getting off these antibiotics how bout stopping eating when I'm full up how bout them transparent dangling carrots how bout that ever elusive kudo thank you india thank you terror thank you...
Ball of Quicksilver
Albert Camus
If I try to taste and understand this delicate flavor that contains the secret of the world, it is again myself that I find at the heart of the universe. Myself, that is to say this intense emotion w...
Everything Is A Miracle
Albert Einstein
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. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one e...
On Education
Albert Einstein
"Sometimes one sees in the school simply the instrument for transferring a certain maximum quantity of knowledge to the growing generation. But that is not right. Knowledge is dead; the school, ho...
Is the Universe Friendly?
Albert Einstein
"I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves. &q...
Our Situation on Earth
Albert Einstein
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that ...
Ideals That Lighted My Way
Albert Einstein
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from...
Reverence For Life
Albert Schweitzer
An absolute ethic calls for the creating of perfection in this life. It cannot be completely achieved; but that fact does not really matter. In this sense reverence for life is an absolute ethic. It ...
Service of Humanity
Albert Schweitzer
From my childhood up, I was troubled about my right to happiness as a matter of course and about the pain which prevails in the world around me. As long ago as my student days, it struck me as inc...
At Once, Beneficiary and Victim
Aldous Huxley
"Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain ...
Law of Reversed Effort
Aldous Huxley
There is a Law of Reversed Effort. The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who ha...
The Difference Between Knowledge And Understanding
Aldous Huxley
Knowledge is acquired when we succeed in fitting a new experience into the system of concepts based upon our old experiences. Understanding comes when we liberate ourselves from the old and so make po...
Can Beauty Save the World?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Dostoyevsky once let drop the enigmatic phrase: “Beauty will save the world.” What does this mean? For a long time it used to seem to me that this was a mere phrase. Just how could such a ...
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
Alice Walker
I am the youngest of eight siblings. Five of us have died. I share losses, health concerns, and other challenges common to the human condition, especially in these times of war, poverty, environmental...
Why Do We Send Flowers?
Alisha Gorder
Why do we send flowers? To make up for what is intangible? Those feelings we can’t hold in our hands and present as a gift to our loved ones? And why is it that the placeholders we choose &mdash...
Faith is to Let Go
Allan Watts
"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water. You don't grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do you will become stiff and tight...
Serving Like The Mountain Stream
Allan Watts
I was taught when I was a little boy that it was good to be unselfish and loving, and I used to think that I should grow up to serve other people. But after a while I found out that unless one has so...
On Humility
Allen Schmeltz
"Humility is a trait that is somewhat of an enigma. For to be humble you must not know you are humble since if you know you are humble and begin to take pride in your humbleness, then you cease to...
Utopia Factories
Alvin Toffler
As we move from poverty to affluence, politics changes from what Mathematicians call a zero-sum game into a non-zero sum game. In the first, if one player wins another must lose. In the second, all ...
The World Through Your Mind
Amaro
The essence of all spiritual practice, in our human condition, is to learn to look beyond the sensory world, learn to abide beyond perception. One way that we can do this is to look upon life as s...
Paying Attention
Amishi P. Jha
Attention is thought to have evolved to solve one of the brain’s biggest challenges: There is far more information in our environment than the brain can fully process. Without a way to filter, t...
We Are Never Alone
Anandmurti Gurumaa
We are never alone. Neither in the womb, nor after birth. The true Self is boundary-less; it is all-pervasive. In terms of existence there isn't any boundary, but at mind, body and speech levels we di...
Returning to the Language of Life
Anat Vaughan-Lee
We do not always know what it is or how to articulate it, but deep inside there is a longing, a longing to live according to a true calling. A calling that comes not from the personality but from a de...
A Realm Beyond Measurement
Andrew Cohen
With meditation, you can't push. Meditation is one of those things that cannot be forced. You just have ot make yourself available, and we do that by being still, being at ease, and paying...
Five Tenets of Life
Andrew Cohen
The five fundamental tenets of [a full life]: 1- Clarity of Intention The first tenet, Clarity of Intention, is the foundation of the authentic spiritual life. It states that in order to succeed in...
The Evolutionary Impulse
Andrew Cohen
It is a very rare moment indeed when the evolutionary impulse -- that mysterious urge toward unbounded freedom and our own potential for radical transformation in this life -- arises in awareness, un...
What is Ego?
Andrew Cohen
"What is ego? Ego is the deeply felt sense of being separate and superior. Indeed, it is an emotional and psychological compulsion to see and feel the self as being separate from and superior to the o...
The Attention That Arises From Caring
Andrew Cohen
Bare mindfulness, or attention from moment to moment, is a good technique as far as it goes, but I don’t feel it’s enough, unless you, whoever you are, care about your own effect in this world and...
Becoming Truly Independent
Andrew Cohen
Many people have told me that they find something and then lose it. They wait and they seek, and then find and lose it again. Most of the time, seekers are trying to rediscover or re-attain something ...
Why Do You Meditate?
Andrew Cohen
You meditate to remind yourself that you're not a prisoner. If there is power in your meditation, if your experience of the ground of being is deep and profound, you will discover and rediscover, ove...
You Are Not a Prisoner
Andrew Cohen
Q: Why is it important to practice meditation consistently? A: You meditate to remind yourself that you are not a prisoner. If there is power in your meditation, if your experience of the Groun...
Is Meditation Boring?
Andrew Cohen
Q: I have been practicing leave the mind and emotions alone, but I often find meditation boring. A: In order for the experience of meditation to be endlessly fascinating and infinitely compellin...
Peace is Not the Ultimate Answer
Andrew Cohen
It continually amazes me that the majority of spiritual seekers from the most affluent countries on our small planet seem to be looking for one thing above anything else: Peace. Peace? Why on earth wo...
Creative Solutions?
Andrew Macnab
When one is confronted with a problem, there is a tendency to classify it, to find a similar problem in one's memory, either previously experienced or heard about, and to apply the previous problem'...
Every Seed Carries a Secret
Angela Fischer
Every seed carries a secret. We will never come to fully know this secret, because it belongs to the mystery of creation. Yet we can learn again what hundreds of generations did before us, namely t...
Three Universal Human Processes
Angeles Arrien
There are three universal processes that every human being is involved in whether you’re in Africa or China or among the island people of the world. They are, first, the work with self. That is ...
Courage to Risk Telling the Truth
Angeles Arrien
Something definitely changes when we finally summon the courage to risk telling the truth about who we are and are not. The primary questions become: how and why do we avoid being who we truly are? Wh...
Instilling Discipline and Responsibility in our Lives
Angeles Arrien
Responsibility is not only the ability to respond to what comes towards us, it is also the capacity to stand behind our actions and to be responsible for all that we do, or do not do. This means that ...
The Secret To Surfing the Waves
Ani Tenzin Palmo
What we need is to be interested and to watch, but not interfere or be caught up in what we are thinking. Don't think of the past, don't anticipate the future, don't get fascinated by the present. S...
Is There A Real World Out There?
Anil Seth
Here’s a commonsense view of perception. Let’s call it the “how things seem” view. There’s a mind‑independent reality out there, full of objects and people and place...
Get a Life
Anna Quindlen
There are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive w...
Commencement Speech
Anna Quindlen
So here's what I wanted to tell you today: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about ...
Look At The View
Anna Quindlen
I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island many years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless suffer in the winter months. He and I sat on the ed...
Does The Mind Exist During Our Sleep?
Annamalai Swami
Every time you go to sleep you have the experience of being without a mind. You cannot deny that you exist while you are asleep and you cannot deny that your mind is not functioning while you are in d...
Two Shells Meeting
Anne Lindbergh
People are like that here. Strangers smile at you on the beach, come up and offer you a shell, for no reason, lightly, and then go by and leave you alone again. Nothing is demanded of you in pa...
Gift from the Sea
Anne Morrow Lindberg
The beach is not the place to work; to read, write, or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit. On...
Technique of the Dance
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Relationship is not strangled by claims. Intimacy is tempered by lightness of touch. We have moved through our day like dancers, not needing to touch more than lightly because we were instinctively ...
What You See Is What You Get
Annie Dillard
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been s...
Hiding A Penny
Annie Dillard
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been s...
Giving Somebody Your Heart
Anonymous
In every interaction you have with another human being—doesn’t matter who—you always have two main choices. (The keyword is choice.) One choice usually leads to logical (b...
We Were Made For These Times
Anonymous
The world is made up of stories. A secret web of agreements about what is “right” and “wrong”, what is “normal” and “weird”, and what is “possible...
Weaving a New Fabric
Anonymous
[ Below is a contribution by a reader who recently lost a loved one and wrote this in a spontaneous email to friends and family. ] a new fabric ... the old one is torn with a huge hole in the m...
The World Feeling And The Soul Feeling
Anthony de Mello
For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? —Matthew 16:26 Recall the kind of feeling you have when someone praises you, when you are approved, accepted,...
Substituting One Cruelty For Another
Anthony de Mello
Many people swing into action only to make things worse. They're not coming from love, they're coming from negative feelings. They're coming from guilt, anger, hate; from a sense of injust...
Absence of Fear
Anthony De Mello
"What is love?" "Total absence of fear," said the master. "What is that we fear?" "Love," said the master. - Anthony De Mello We fear this total absence of fear. Why? Because if we...
Effort Does Not Change The Person
Anthony De Mello
Effort may change the behavior but it does not change the person. Just think what kind of a mentality it betrays when you ask, 'What must I do to get holiness?' Isn't it like asking, How m...
Thought is a screen not a mirror
Anthony De Mello
"Why are you so wary of thought?" said the philosopher. "Thought is the one tool we have for organizing the world." "True. But thought can organize the world so well...
Dropping That Drug
Anthony de Mello
If we really dropped illusions for what others can give us or deprive us of, we would become alert. The consequence of not doing this is terrifying and inescapable -- we lose our capacity to love. If ...
Can You Just Sit?
Anthony de Mello
The disciples were involved in a heated discussion on the cause of human suffering. Some said it came from selfishness. Others, from delusion. Yet others, from the inab...
The Job
Anthony De Mello
Enter first applicant. "You understand that this is a simple test we are giving you before we offer you the job you have applied for?" "Yes." "Well, what is two plus two?" ...
Armchair Explorer
Anthony De Mello
"The explorer returned to his people, who were eager to know about the Amazon. But how could he ever put into words the feelings that flooded his heart when he saw exotic flowers and heard the night-...
Life Before Death
Anthony De Mello
All questions at the public meeting that day were about life beyond the grave. The Master only laughed and did not give a single answer. To his disciples, who demanded to know the reason for his ...
Three Qualities Of Holiness
Anthony De Mello
True happiness is uncaused. You are happy for no reason at all. And true happiness cannot be experienced. It is not within the realm of consciousness. So it is with holiness. Holiness i...
We Want Relief. Cure Is Painful
Anthony de Mello
Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep,...
Relief Not Cure
Anthony DeMello
Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they di...
Do You Really Want A Cure
Anthony DeMello
To a distressed person who came to him for help the Master said, "Do you really want a cure?" "If I did not, would I bother to come to you?" "Oh yes. Most people do." "What for?" "Not for a cure...
Listening
Anthony Mello
"How shall I experience my oneness with creation?" "By listening," said the Master. "And how am I to listen?" "Become an ear that gives heed to every single thing the universe is saying. ...
Goodness Within
Anthony Mello
"Why is everyone here so happy except me?" "Because they have learned to see goodness and beauty everywhere," said the Master. "Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?" "Because you cannot...
Grown-ups Like Numbers
Antoine Exupéry
Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: "What does his voice sound like?" "What games does he like best?" ...
Three Levels Of Happiness
Anushka Fernandopulle
The Buddha talked about three different levels of happiness. The first is happiness that can come from pleasant sense experiences: delicious food, nice weather, pleasant music, or any kind of positive...
Coddiwomple
April Rinne
Coddiwomple is one of my all-time favorite words, especially as a metaphor for life. It means to travel purposefully towards an as-yet-unknown destination. Isn't that what we're...
Response Is Different From An Answer
Ariel Burger
The current moment calls for moral ferocity. We should not sleep well at night when we know others are suffering. Ferocity itself, though, holds danger. Let’s not forget that some of the worst p...
Does God Have A Form?
Arthur Osborne
"Has God a form?" a man once challenged Ramana Maharshi, the great Indian sage. "Who says God has a form?" Ramana retorted. The questioner persisted, "If God is formless is...
Open to Release
Arthur Zajonc
Let's say you're making something, a simple artistic sketch. You have the sketch in front of you. There's the sketch; you study it, move it inwardly, feel its gestures. Now i...
Run With The Unexpected
Aryae Coopersmith
So many portals to you Hindu, Jew, Sufi, Sikh, artist, lover, dancer, explorer, peace-warrior. Children, strangely familiar, are rushing up to greet and initiate you. Joyful ravens ...
Various Quotes
Asha Praver
Humor is spiritual because laughing shows the ability to detach from life, to realize that life is just like "froth on a wave." ----- Sometimes people embrace the idea of "loving unconditionally" si...
Time Confetti And The Broken Promise Of Leisure
Ashley Whillans
It’s true: we have more time for leisure than we did fifty years ago. But leisure has never been less relaxing, mostly because of the disintermediating effects of our screens. Technology saves u...
Space in the Crowded Workplace
Ashvin Iyengar
The more I live, the more I am realizing the importance of space. Space between thoughts and actions. Space which has room for possibilities despite being crowded with opinions. Space which makes choi...
Unattainable Goal of Peace
Aung San Suu Kyi
[Nobel Lecture, June 16, 2012] The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk. It may be questioned whether a...
A Spiritual Conspiracy
Author Unknown
On the surface of the Earth exactly now there is war and violence and everything looks horrible. But, simultaneously, something quiet, calm and hidden is happening and certain people are being c...
Showing Up For Life
Author Unknown
The way we walk into a room says a lot about the way we live our lives. When we walk into a room curious about what's happening, willing to engage, and perceiving ourselves as an active participant wi...
The Act of Giving is the True Gift
Author Unknown
In an ancient Indian epic, Arjuna, a famed warrior questions his divine charioteer, Krishna, about the noblest giver in the land. "Karna is without doubt the finest example of generosity in ...
Maybe, Said the Farmer
Author Unknown
Once upon a time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said...
Beyond The Conflict Of Inner Forces
Author Unknown
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life: “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.”It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – ...
Futility of Search
Author Unknown
The disciple looked at the Master. So calm and peaceful while he himself was so agitated, restless and confused. He asked the Master, “What do you know that I don’t know?&rd...
Gamble On Humanity
Ayisha Siddiqa
What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight. Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves. To withstand your own end is dif...
Signals Even GPS Cannot Detect
Aylie Baker
Returning to the US was always hard for me, in part because I began to notice how GPS technology was eroding what was left of our wayfinding capabilities. In the spring of 2013, I flew from Palau back...