Reading Archive (Freedom in Life)

Everything Is Waiting For You

David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama  as if you were alone. As if life  were a progressive and cunning crime  with no witness to the tiny hidden  transgressions. To feel aban...

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116K reads, 40 comments

The Committee of the Mind

Thanissaro Bhikku

There are many different ideas of “you” in your mind, each with its own agenda. Each of these “you's” is a member of the committee of the mind. This is why the mind is less...

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108K reads, 10 comments

The Oppressor and the Oppressed Must Both be Liberated

Nelson Mandela

I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must...

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100K reads, 31 comments

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 ...

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35K reads, 13 comments

The Same Self Is in All of Us

Eknath Easwaran

The same spark of divinity–this same Self–is enshrined in every creature. My real Self is not different from yours nor anyone else’s. If we want to live in the joy that increases wit...

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30K reads, 12 comments

A Key To End Sorrow

J. Krishnamurti

The demand to be safe in a relationship inevitably breeds sorrow and fear. The seeking for security invites insecurity. Have you ever found security in any of your relationships? Have you? Most of us ...

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23K reads, 8 comments

I Have No Need For An Enemy

Troy Chapman

In passing my sentence, the judge said, “There’s no hope that you can ever be rehabilitated.” My sentence of 60-90 years was a tragic and too predictable end of the road I’d be...

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20K reads, 15 comments

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...

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20K reads, 6 comments

What is Meditation?

Vimala Thakar

"This awareness of the so called outward and the inward movements of life, is meditation. The simultaneous awareness of the total movement is meditation. If I am aware of the nature of my reactio...

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19K reads, 7 comments

Seeing Is Not Thinking

Jeanne de Salzmann

The question is not what to do but how to see. Seeing is the most important thing—the act of seeing. I need to realize that it is truly an act, an action that brings something entirely new, a ne...

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19K reads, 7 comments

Feel Free To Set A Better Example

Ryan Holiday

At the core of legal theory is this idea that there are essentially two forms of liberty—positive and negative. Positive liberty is the freedom to do something, such as the freedom of speech or ...

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16K reads, 12 comments

Stepping into the Present Is a Gift

Carolyn Hobbs

Most of us have heard of ego and let ego run our lives without realizing it. But few of us know how deeply our ego—the small, less mature, defensive part of us that reacts personally to every li...

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16K reads, 8 comments

Inclining Toward Freedom, Even Through Imperfections

Larry Yang

If we focus only on awakening, we miss most of the spiritual practice. I’m much more interested in how we practice with not awakening, with not being enlightened, because, frankly, those states ...

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16K reads, 5 comments

Live Intentionally, In Freedom

Eknath Easwaran

Modern psychology commonly asserts that we cannot enter the unconscious fully aware. The mystic responds, "Oh, yes, you can! I have done it." The journey cannot be adequately described, but ...

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14K reads, 7 comments

Spiritual Materialism

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

What first comes to mind to speak about is my own spiritual materialism. I find that as I'm reading or reflecting upon the teachings and something becomes clear to me, I immediately want to rush o...

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13K reads, 22 comments