Weekly Inspiration

Bowing to the Dalai Lama Om Mani Padme Hum

The truth is never taken from another. One carries it always in oneself. -       Tetto Giko

Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity. -       Lao Tzu

The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. - Albert Einstein

A pure heart is the result of pure thought.  -   Yogananda

We carry within us the wonders we seek without us. -      Sir Thomas Browne 1643

I think it is only important to love the world,  not to despise it, not for us to hate each other,  but to be able to regard the world and ourselves  and all beings with love, admiration and respect.  -  Siddhartha

All is clear. Only I am clouded. -   Lao Tzu

If you want to Extend the light Of the Dharma, Let it first illumine Your own heart. -  Rengetsu

Silence is imprinted in the center of our being.  It will not fail us. -  Thomas Merton

Joy and sorrows pass, each by each, failure at one moment, happy success the next. But not for me. I have chosen freedom. I choose simplicity. -   Hsieh Ling-yun

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself and all the while a great wind is blowing me across the sky. -   Objibwa saying

There’s a crack in everything, It’s how the light gets in. -  Leonard Cohen

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart… who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens. -       Carl Jung

Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear. -       Isha Upanishd

It is utter stillness. Such is the form and shape of your original mind. Your own nature is essentially pure and utterly still. -      Hui Hai

Within your life and mine there lives a cherry blossom. -   Toho

What is, is a great beauty, great love, great silence, and that is really all. -       David Carse

Recognition of the sacred comes from recognizing it in small things. -   Helen Luke

Only in the mind of man is there chaos. - Nisargadatta

Who sees all beings in his own self and his own self in all beings, loses all fear. -      Isha Upanishada

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. -   Lubbock

All those stars set out in order bright in the night’s deep. Dark on the cliff, the orphan lamp, moon not set yet… Perfectly round, that bright mirror no one needs to polish, hanging there in the clear air: it’s my heart. -       Han Shan

The monks in a particular monastery knew their Abbott had attained enlightenment when he stopped meditating and started playing with the cat. -      anon

All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms. -      Blaise Pascal

You ask why I live alone in the mountain forest, and I smile and am silent until even my soul grows quiet. The peach trees blossom. The water continues to flow. I live in the other world, One that lies beyond the human. -       Li Po

I went out for a walk and found I was really going in.  -    John Muir

From morning, Perfectly tranquil, Far removed from The world’s turmoil – One with the spring mist. -   Rengetsu

Silence is one of the great arts of communication. -      Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you understand, things are just as they are.  If you don’t understand, things are just as they are. - Zen saying

If you want to know the truth, cease cherishing opinions. - Seng-t'san

How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterward. - Spanish proverb

A waterbird, asleep, floats on the river between life and death. - Robun

Peace is everywhere. You are swimming in an ocean of peace… When you are conscious of this divine, cohesive power by which the universe is maintained, you see beauty everywhere. Paramahamsa Yogananda

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. - Deng Ming-dao

My mind’s the winter moon, shining in the dark forest, reflecting pure and clear… There’s nothing to compare it to, what else can I say? - Han Shan

I follow my life as it moves, with perfect contentment. - Ryokan

Relax! Nothing is under control. -  a timeless message

It doesn’t matter that you’ve broken your vow a thousand times. Still come, and yet, come again. - Rumi

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always. - Ghandi

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet. - W.B Yeats

Silence is printed in the center of your being.  It will not fail you. - Thomas Merton

To be in the question, without an answer, opens us up to infinite possibility. - anon

Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of Love. - Rumi

Everything we long for is found in stillness.  

I explored the grounds with the monks this evening, and now the night has passed. Heavy silence rises all around us while late moonlight spills through the forest. The mountain rises almost to heaven. Sleeping in the clouds is cold. A single stroke of the early prayer bell wakes me. Does it also awaken my soul? - Tu Fu

There is no way to peace.  Peace is the way.

I ask all blessings, I ask them with reverence, of my mother the earth, of the sky, moon, and sun my father. I am old age: the essence of life, I am the source of all happiness. All is peaceful, all in beauty, All in harmony, all in joy. - Navaho prayer

To know when to stop, To know when you can go no farther By your own action, That is the right beginning. - Chuang-tzu

Amid the din of the floating world, The full moon sets in the western sky, Its light shining through the branches. Grey robe on the Zafu, Bathed in Eternal Glow. - David Quinn

The natural universe opens like a flower from the earth’s center: in which is eternity. - William blake

You stand inside me, naked infinite Love. We’re lost where the mind can’t find us, utterly lost. - Ikkyu

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you truly love. - Rumi

I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one. – Ghandi

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. … a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything. - T.S. Elliot Little Gidding

learning to be nothing special - day by day summer deepens

To the quiet mind all things are possible. - Meister Eckhart

Summer Moon The cool shadow Of the bright moon In an open field Makes me forget All daytime worries. - Rengetsu

A man will live in stillness, not to the extent that he is a man,  but to the extent that a divine principle dwells within him. - Aristotle

Anyone who is moved by the beauty of art is in reality being moved by the invisible power the lies beneath the surface. - Soetsu Yanagi

Only in the mind of man is there chaos. - Nisargadatta

There is no law between the heart and God. - Thomas Merton

 Ah, not to be cut off, not through the slightest partition shut out from the law of the stars. The inner - what is it? if not intensified sky, hurled through with birds and deep with the winds of homecoming. - Ranier Maria Rilke

In stillness she is moved, and when she moves, she succeeds. - Chuang Tzu

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose I am here and you are out there. - Yatsutani Roshi

To get rid of your passions is not nirvana; to look upon them as no matter of yours, that is nirvana. - Shen Hui

Why must the gate be narrow? Because you cannot pass beyond it unburdened. To come in among these trees you must leave behind the world, all of its plans and hopes. You must come without weapon or tool, alone, expecting nothing, remembering nothing, into the ease of stillness. - Wendell Berry

Acceptance liberates all potential. - Chuang Tzu

All is clear, only I am cloudy. - Lao-tzu

As the night advances, The fragrance of the blossoms Perfumes both the Sleeves of my black robe And the recesses of my heart. - Rengetsu

When we have reached the outposts of the mind, we are ready for the journey to the heart. - Francis Lucille

When your real, effortless, joyous nature is realized,  it will not be inconsistent with the ordinary activities of life. - Ramana Maharshi

Here where I’ve come to perch, are many deep and mysterious places men seldom speak of. No wind, and yet the vines sway; no mist, but the bamboo groves seem somehow always dusky. Who is it that the stream sobs for, or for whom do the mountain’s clouds stand suddenly like pennants at attention? At noon, when I meditate inside my tent, I find the...

Keep quiet, undisturbed, and wisdom will come on its own. Wait in silence of heart and mind, without the least desire, completely open to, and welcoming of, life as it happens. - Nisargadatta

We should make all spiritual talk simple today. God is trying to sell you something, but you don’t want to buy. That is what your suffering is: your fantastic haggling,  your manic screaming over the price! - Hafiz

 Grace is always present. You imagine it is something somewhere high in the sky,  far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart, and the moment you effect subsidence  or merger of the mind into its Source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as a spring from within you. — Ramana Maharshi

Love all creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each other. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in things. — Dostoevsky

The deepest thing in a human heart is silence, the silence of intimacy where no word is needed. - anon

Our Own inner knowing is our final authority. — SL

Peace on earth. Goodwill to men.

The test that one holds fast to the Beginning is the fact that one is not afraid. – Chuang-tzu

How the heart feels is how the mind thinks. - Richard Rudd

Silence is the seed of ecstasy.

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind is bearing me across the sky. - Objibwe prayer

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. - Lubbock

The gorge is long and rocks jut up, the torrents wide, reeds almost hide the other side. The moss is slippery even without rain. The pines sing, the wind is real enough. Who’s ready to leap free of the world’s traces: come sit with me among white clouds? - Han Shan

You are creative when you seek nothing, when your ego does nothing. Be knowingly silent as often as you can. - Jean Klein