Quote of the Day
From my daily Zen calendar. These are some of the ones I particularly like and want to keep.
- January 3: "Do not conquer the world with force, for force only causes resistance. Thorns spring up when an army passes. Years of misery follow a great victory. Do what only needs to be done, without using violence." - Lao-tzu
- January 7: "Contentment is natural wealth. Luxury is artificial poverty." - Socrates
- January 11: "Meditation is not an escape from life, but preparation for really being in life." - Thich Nhat Hanh
- January 13: "If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow." - Chinese proverb
- January 20: "The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he as attained liberation from the self." - Albert Einstein
- January 24: "At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want." - Lao-tzu
- January 28: "We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a persons nearest to us." - Albert Einstein
- January 31: "Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now." - Brenda Shoshanna
- February 1: "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." - Lao-tzu
- February 3: "The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs.' They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future." - Henri J. Nouwen
- February 7: "Do not look back. And do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward - your destiny are here and now." - Dag Hammarskjold
- February 14: "Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent." - Krishnamurti
- February 16: "Because I know that time is always time and place is always and only place and what is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are..." - T.S. Eliot
- February 22: "People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." - Thich Nhat Hanh
- February 24: "The enlightened ones are neither attached to nor detached from their senses and thoughts." - Huang Po
- February 25: "Always we hope someone else has the answer. Some other place will be better, it will all turn out. This is it. No one else has the answer. No other place will be better, and it has already turned out." - Lao-tzu
- February 27: We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient Characteristic of life is its urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank." - Jose Ortega y Gasset
- February 28: "The mature person pays attention to what is happening in the innermost self." - Tzu-Ssu
- March 1: "Listen to your life. All moments are key moments." - Frederick Buechner
- March 3: "The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year." - Thomas Dreier
- March 8: "Every step in personal growth needs isolation, needs inner conversation and deliberation and a reviewing with the self." - Joost A.M. Meerloo
- March 10: "Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place." - Lao-tzu
- March 11: "The way upward fro inertia to illumination passes through the sphere of action." - Swami Prabhavananda
- March 15: "The undisturbed mind is like the calm body of water reflecting the brilliance of the moon." - Yagyu Jubei
- March 16: "Let your mind function freely without abiding anywhere or in anything." - Hui-Neng
- March 19/20: "A happy life consists of tranquility of mind." - Cicero
- March 24: "Self-reverence, self-knowlege, self-control, these three alone lead life to sovereign power" - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- March 26/27: "Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness..." - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
- March 29: "I have just three things to teacj: simplicity, patience, compassion. These things are your greatest treasure" - Lao-tzu
- April 1: "It is not the length of life, but depth of life." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
- April 5: "n calmness there should be activity; in activity there should be calmness." - Anonymous
- April 6: "It is necessary to be noble, and yet take humility as a basis. It is necessary to be exalted, and yet take modesty as a foundation." - Lao-tzu
- April 4: "Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation." - Rabindranath Tagore
- April 7: "We create ourselves. The sequence is suffering, insight, will, action, change." - Allen Wheelis
- April 9/10: "The quieter you become, the more you can hear." -- Ram Dass
- April 13: "If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are." -- Zen Proverb
- April 16/17: "Don't be surprised, don't be startled; All things will arrange themselves. Don't cause a disturbance, don't exert pressure; All things will clarify themselves." - Huai-nan-tzu
- April 18: "The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." - Rabindranath Tagore
- April 22: "In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you love? How deeply did you learn to let go?" - Buddha
- May 1: "Try to be like the turtle - At ease in your own shell." - Bill Copeland
- May 2: "Spring passes,and one remembers one's innocence, Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perserverance" - Yoko Ono
- May 3: "Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment." - Lao-Tzu
- May 6: "Here it is -- right now. Start thinking about it and you miss it." - Huang Po
- May 7/8: "There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which... is within the souls of men." - Black Elk
- May 11: "Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning...and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom." - Bergen Evans
- May 16 "The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put oursels in unison with this order." - Henry Miller
- May 21/22: "The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being." - D.H. Lawrence
- May 23: "With gentleness, over anger. With generosity, overcome meaness. With truth, overcome delusion." - The Dhammapada
- May 24: "To return to the root is to find the meaning, But to pursue appearance is to miss the source." - Seng-Ts'an