From the Buddhist point of view, the Chinese officer who is committing the cruel act against the young boy is initiating a new cycle of negative karma. In the case of the child, there is a closure of a particular karma that the child is experiencing. The perpetrator of the crime is in fact an object of more compassion and mercy than the child.

Discriminating awareness means that while you are capable of appreciating other’s pain and you do your best to bring the end of their suffering, you do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed by other’s pain, because then you can be paralyzed by it; nothing happens.

If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation.

 Buddhist are concerned not only for this life but for life after life, on and on. We count not weeks or months or even years, but lives and eons.

One of the characteristics of karmic theory is that there is a definite, commensurate relationship between cause and effect. There is no way that negative actions or unwholesome deeds can result in joy and happiness.Joy and happiness, by definition, are the results or fruits of wholesome actions. So, from that point of view, it is possible for us to admire not so much the immediate action, but the real causes of joy.

The impermanence of this present life will force you to leave all wealth behind, but by giving it away, you can take it with you as good karma.

I believe that the proper utilization of time is this: if you can, serve other people, other sentient beings. If not, at least refrain from harming them. I think that is the whole basis of my philosophy.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition teaches us to view all sentient beings as our dear mothers and to show our gratitude by loving them all. For, according to Buddhist theory, we are born and reborn countless numbers of times, and it is conceivable that each being has been our parent at one time or another. In this way all beings in the universe share a family relationship.

To develop patience, you need someone who willfully hurts you. Such people give us real opportunities to practice tolerance. They test our inner strength in a way that even our guru cannot. Basically, patience protects us from being discouraged.

Whatever forms of meditation you practice, the most important point is to apply mindfulness continuously, and make a sustained effort. It is unrealistic to expect results from meditation within a short period of time. What is required is continuous sustained effort.

It is not a question of forgetting the past; the question is not holding on to that resentment.

Without desire there is no movement, no effort. Desire is very, very necessary. Unreasonable, unrealistic desire is attachment. Attachment up to a certain level is positive─but when attachment goes beyond, then it is destructive. That is covetousness.

According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life. The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated.

If object and people evoke attachment in us, we do not understand the true nature of phenomena. We can only become detached by realizing the true nature of things.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend─or a meaningful day.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.

If a person’s basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience. On the other hand, if someone is suffering fromdepression, anxiety, or any form of emotional distress, then even if he or she happens to be enjoying physical comforts, he will not really be able to experience the happiness that these could bring.

I always tell people that we human beings, in a way because of this intelligence, are the biggest troublemakers. Yet because of this intelligence, we also have the capacity to not only take care of ourselves but also to take care of the whole world. According to Buddhist psychology, most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.

Cyclic existence means bondage, and liberation means freedom from this bondage. The causes of cyclic existence are contaminated actions and afflictions. If the roots of the afflictions are eliminated and if new actions are not ‘accumulated’, since there are no affiliations to activate the predispositions of contaminated actions persisting from the past, the causes of cyclic existence have been eliminated. Then there is freedom from bondage.

Some say that as long as one still has mental physical aggregates wrought by former contaminated actions and afflictions, one has a nirvana with remainder. When these no longer remain, there is a nirvana without remainder. ‘Without remainder’ means that there is no remainder of mental and physical aggregates wrought by contaminated actions and afflictions, but the continuum of consciousness and the continuum of uncontaminated mental and physical aggregates still exist.

Samsara-our conditioned existence in the perpetual cycle of habitual tendencies and nirvana – genuine freedom from such an existence- are nothing but different manifestations of a basic continuum. So, this continuity of consciousness is always present. This is the meaning of tantra.

As far as your personal requirements are concerned, the ideal is to have fewer involvements, fewer obligations, and fewer affairs, business or whatever. However, so far as the interest of the larger community is concerned, you must have as many involvements as possible and as many activities as possible.

Consciousness will always be present, though a particular consciousness may cease. For example, the particular tactile consciousness that is present within this human body will cease when the body comes to an end. Likewise, consciousnesses that are 
influenced by ignorance, by anger or by attachment, these too will cease. But the basic, ultimate, innermost subtle consciousness will always remain. It has no beginning, and it will have no end.

When we are young and again when we are old, we depend heavily on the affection of others. Between these stages we usually feel that we can do everything without help from others and that other people’s affection is simply not important. But at this stage I think it is very important to keep deep human affection.

I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It is the ultimate source of success in life.

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure.

To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else. Rather than speaking badly about people and in ways that will produce friction and unrest in their lives, we should practice a purer perception of them, and when we speak of others, speak of their good qualities.

Buddha-Nature exists in everyone no matter how deeply it may be covered over by greed, anger and foolishness, or buried by his own deeds and retribution. Buddha-Nature cannot be lost or destroyed; and when all defilements are removed, sooner or later it will reappear.

We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are “news”; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and, therefore, largely ignored.

I believe that in the 20th century, humanity has learned from many, many experiences. Some positive, and many negative. What misery, what destruction! The greatest number of human beings were killed in the two world wars of this century. But human nature is such that when we face a tremendous critical situation, the human mind can wake up and find some other alternative. That is a human capacity.

Fundamentalism is terrifying because it is based purely on emotion, rather than intelligence. It prevents followers from thinking as individuals and about the good of the world. 

We mentally give forgiveness to the Chinese. That means we try not to keep negative feelingtowards them because of their misdeeds. But that does not mean we accept what they have done. We forgive them as persons but do not forgive or forget their actions.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

I find hope in the darkest of days and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

The Dalai Lama

The Bodhisattva Vow:

Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are endless, I vow to enter them.
Buddha’s Way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it.

“With a wish to free all beings 
I shall always go for refuge
To the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha,
Until I reach full enlightenment.
Enthused by wisdom and compassion,
today in the Buddhas’ presence I generate
the Mind for Full Awakening
For the benefit of all sentient beings.
As long as space remains,
As long as sentient beings remain,
Until then, may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world”

I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, 

To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment─what is this, then?

I do not ask any more delight─I swim in it, as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;

All things please the soul─but these please the soul well.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
 
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
 
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on─have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear─what remains? Nature remains.
 
 And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
 
 And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

 Be curious, not judgmental.

 Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give, I give myself.
 
 Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.
 
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
 
Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
 
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
 
I accept reality and dare not question it.
 
I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.
 
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
 
I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.

I celebrate myself and sing myself.
 
I exist as I am, that is enough.

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.

If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.
 
If you done it, it ain’t bragging.

Keep your face always toward the sunshine─and shadows will fall behind you.

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

Nothing endures but personal qualities.
 
Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
 
O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.
 
Oh, while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
 
Re-examine all that you have been told… dismiss that which insults your soul.

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
 
 The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
 
There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
 
To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
 
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.

Walt Whitman

“We practise and we work with whatever arises─ without attempting to convert the disorderly nature of existence into something more regimented.”

“We exist in continual flux. We move, and are moved, in the dance of appearances─ in the limitless pattern of creation and destruction. The perceptible and imperceptible seem to make each other a mystery.”

“We have to be the ‘peace and quiet’ rather than expecting the world to supply it.”

“Without this ‘wearying world’ we cannot find enlightenment. Without the responses we would be bereft of the fabulous friction which illuminates our Buddha nature.”

“Worry is the mind’s attempt to stay safe.”

“This physical manifestation shimmers between wonderment and bewilderment.”

“Death, impermanence, things that go wrong, laughter, colour, autumn leaves, light sparkling in puddles, cars breaking down, relationships ending, falling in love – all are the play of existence, the movement and change that is reality. It is only experienced as unsatisfactory when we try to stop movement and change, or see movement and change as painful. Once we have a real understanding of the cause of our experience of samsara as unsatisfactory, we can engage with it in a light-hearted manner. We play with our life experience, rather than feeling like a victim of our circumstances.”

“Emptiness is the essence of being. It is this emptiness which allows us to manifest. Emptiness is the most salient quality of what we are─it is the ground of being. Energetic being arises from this emptiness as the play of energy, and material being arises from this energy as the play of form.”

“We are the dance of existence and non-existence. Unless we know this─Tantra is impossible. But, whether we understand it or not─Tantra is continually performing itself; it is what is happening.”

“Because Tantra is constantly performing itself─in us, through us, and around us─we can either acknowledge it, by taking hold of the bare electric cables of existence and non-existence, or try to pretend, as hard as possible, that it’s not happening.”

“We all question our lives at certain moments. This is somewhat unavoidable. Our beginningless enlightenment continually sparkles through, and causes us the irritation of wanting to question what is going on. This happens at various junctures in our lives; and when it does, we are confronted with the inconvenient fact that we are somehow symbols of ourselves. We’re not completely certain that we’re the real thing.”

“Trust and respect are the emptiness and form of romance”

“The Lama is the ecstatic, wild and gentle figure who short-circuits your systems of self-referencing. The Lama is the only person in your life who cannot be manipulated. The Lama is the invasion of unpredictability you allow into your life, to enable you to cut through the convolutions of interminable psychological and emotional processes. The Lama is the terrifyingly compassionate gamester who reshuffles the deck of your carefully arranged rationale.”

“To receive empowerment is to be struck by lightning in the gentlest possible manner. To be burnt by searing kindness into nothing but what you actually are . . . To wake up, softly startled, at one vivid moment in time. To realise that you have been asleep; and, that suddenly you are both older than the earth and younger than you can remember.”

“If there was no sadness in loss, there would have been no joy prior to it ─– but that sadness does not have to be permanent.”

“Impermanence is a cause for celebration. Impermanence is our opportunity to discover presence. Present moments are infinite. They will never end. We will never cease to have opportunities to start again. We will never cease to have opportunities to experience presence.”

“Always put the possibility of joy before the need to be safe.”

Ngak’chang Rinpoche

The Four Reliances:

Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality;
Rely on the meaning, not just on the words;
Rely on the real meaning, not just the provisional one;
rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary, judgmental mind.

The Buddha

Alan Watts:

“As you get older and wiser, it is not just flagging energy but wisdom that teaches you to look at mountains from below, or perhaps just climb them a little way. For at the top you can no longer see the mountain.”

An old aphorism from India says: “What is beyond, is that which is also hear. And yet, you must not take this for a kind of blasé boredom or a tiring of adventure. It is instead the startling recognition that in the place where we are now, we have already arrived. This is it. What we are seeking is, if we are not totally blind, already here.”

On the Tao: “When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself, becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. If the cat made up its mind that it didn’t want to fall, it would become tense and rigid and would just be a bag of broken bones upon landing.

In the same way, it is the philosophy of the Tao that we are all falling out of a tree, at every moment of our lives. As a matter of fact, the moment we were born we were kicked off a precipice and we are falling─and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

So, instead of living in a state of constant tension and clinging to all sorts of things that are actually falling with us because the whole world is impermanent, be like a cat. Don’t resist it.”

“Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.”

“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.”

“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”

“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”

William Blake:

“Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.”

“The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom . . . for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.”

“Mere enthusiasm is the all in all . . .Passion and expression are beauty itself.”

“Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction.”

Albert Einstein:

“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

“If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. . . . The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.”
Rudyard Kipling

“Atman has gradations of manifestation in relative reality”
Shankara

“But ’tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors, try to be better than yourself.”
William Faulkner

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just the first step.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.”
Abraham Maslow

On Beauty

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”
Kahlil Gibran

“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.”
Sophia Loren

“Pull you from your tower, take away your pain. Show you all the beauty you possess, if you only let yourself believe.”
Sarah McLachlan

“The difference between pretty and beautiful is: Pretty is temporal-whereas beautiful is eternal.”
Unknown

On Strength

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”
Anais Nin

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
Lao Tzu

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.”
Unknown

On Fortitude

“People need trouble ─ a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.”
William Faulkner

“Agriculture is for living; mind culture is for life. Skills are for shaping material things so that they cater more for the comfort of man; studies are for shaping attitudes, feelings, desires, emotions and impulses of man, so that they may confer more peace, more joy and more fortitude on man.”
Sri Sathya Sai Baba

“Splendor, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, absence of malice, and absence of pride; these are the qualities of those endowed with divine virtues, O Arjuna.”
Bhagavad Gita

On Imagination

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?'”
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert Einstein

On Wisdom

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.”
Confucius

“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”
Swami Sivananda

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”
Kahlil Gibran

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
Confucius

Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Reinhold Niebuhr

Serenity Prayer (short version):

“F**k em!”
Anonymous

Arthur Schopenhauer:

“If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.”

“It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.”

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Here are just a few quotes from one of my favorite tricksters, Osho─aka Rajneesh. Enjoy!

Don’t think in terms of having to be perfect, think in terms of having to be total. Totality is not a goal, it is a style of life.

Whenever there are alternatives, beware: Don’t choose the convenient, the comfortable, the respectable, the socially acceptable, the honorable. Choose something that rings a bell in your heart. Choose something that you would like to do in spite of any consequences.

To commit a mistake is not wrong─commit as many mistakes as possible, because that is the way you will be learning more. But don’t commit the same mistake again and again, because that makes you stupid.

Life is basically insecure. Death is secure, absolutely secure. The moment you choose security, unknowingly you have chosen death. With the secure, the familiar, you are bored; you start becoming dull. With the insecure, the unknown, the uncharted, you feel ecstatic, beautiful, a child with eyes of wonder again.

Living consists only of those things which have no point at all, no meaning at all─meaning in the sense that they don’t have any goal, they don’t lead you anywhere, you don’t get anything out of them. In other words, living is significant in itself.

Each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable─the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.

Sensuousness is one of the greatest blessings to humanity. It is your sensitivity, it is your consciousness filtered through the body.

Orgasm is nature’s indication that you contain within yourself a tremendous amount of blissfulness. It simply gives you a taste of it─then you can go on the search. An enlightened person is in a state of orgasmic joy twenty-four hours a day.

The one who knows how to live knows how to die. The one who knows how to fall in love knows when the moment has come to fall out of it. He falls out of it gracefully, with a good-bye, with gratitude.

Live in the moment for the sheer joy of living it. Live with no should, with no ought, with no must, with no commandment. You are not here to be a martyr, you are here to enjoy life to the fullest.

Life is a pilgrimage to nowhere─from nowhere to nowhere. And between these two nowheres is the now-here. Nowhere consists of two words: now, here. Between these two nowheres is the now-here.

If one really wants to live life in all its richness, one has to learn how to be consistently inconsistent. How to be able to move from one extreme to another─sometimes rooted deep in the earth and sometimes flying high in the heavens, sometimes making love and sometimes meditating. And then, slowly, your heaven and your earth come closer and closer, and you will become the horizon where they meet.

The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people’s opinions.

Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal. The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive. Repeat that to yourself every morning: “I’ve arrived.” That way you’ll find it much easier to stay in touch with each second of your day.

Everyone’s looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that’s something people find hard to accept. Don’t confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself.

Every human being has a personal legend to be fulfilled, and this is our reason for being in the world. This personal legend manifests itself in our enthusiasm for the task.

When we renounce our dreams, we find peace and enjoy a brief period of tranquillity, but the dead dreams begin to rot inside us and to infect the whole atmosphere in which we live. What we hoped to avoid in the Fight’s disappointment and defeat─become the sole legacy of our cowardice.

For the warrior of light there are no ends, only means. Life carries him from unknown to unknown. Each moment is filled with this thrilling mystery: the warrior does not know where he came from or where he is going.

A Warrior knows that everything a person does has enduring consequences.

We lose many things simply out of our fear of losing them.

The warrior of light knows that everything around him─- his victories, his defeats, his enthusiasm and his despondency─form part of his Good Fight.

Those who never take risks can only see other people’s failures.

Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.

I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

When there is no turning back, then we should concern ourselves only with the best way of going forward.

A warrior of light always commits himself. He is enslaved to his dream but he is free in his steps.

Respect your soul: don’t keep repeating “I’m going to make it.” Your soul already knows that, what it needs is to use the long journey to be able to grow, stretch along the horizon, touch the sky. An obsession does not help you at all to reach your objective, and even ends up taking the pleasure out of the climb. But pay attention: also, don’t keep saying “it’s harder than I thought,” because that will make you lose your inner strength.

Respect your body: you can only climb a mountain if you give your body the attention it deserves. You have all the time that life grants you, as long as you walk without demanding what can’t be granted. If you go too fast you will grow tired and give up half way there. If you go too slow, night will fall and you will be lost. Enjoy the scenery, take delight in the cool spring water and the fruit that nature generously offers you, but keep on walking

Choose the mountain you want to climb: don’t pay attention to what other people say, such as “that one’s more beautiful” or “this one’s easier.” You’ll be spending lots of energy and enthusiasm to reach your objective, so you’re the only one responsible and you should be sure of what you’re doing.

The glory of the world is transitory,
and we should not measure our lives by it,
but by the choice we make
to follow our personal legend,
to believe in our utopias
and to fight for our dreams.
We are all protagonists of our own lives,
And it is often the anonymous heroes
who leave the deepest mark.

Emotions are wild horses. It is not explanations that carry us forward, but our will to go on.

The most important experiences we can have are those that take us to the very limit. That is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage.

The magic moment is the moment when a “yes” or a “no” can change our whole existence.

The world’s greatest lie: At a certain point i n our lives we lose control of what’s happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.

There was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time that he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.

No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Paul Coelho

You’ve flapped and fluttered against limits long enough.
You’ve been a bird without wings in a house without doors or windows.
Compassion builds a door.
Restlessness cuts a key.
ASK!
Step off
proudly into sunlight,
not looking back.
Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don’t mind that you’ve been given a dirty cup.

Learn about your inner self from those who know such things,
but don’t repeat verbatim what they say.

Does a drop stay still in the ocean?
Move with the entirety, and with the tiniest particular.
Be the moisture in an oyster that helps to form one pearl.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

If you don’t try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it’s too late for all you could become.

Whatever you lost through fate,
be certain that it saved you from pain.

Be with those who help your being.
Don’t sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.

Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,
are your own nature reflected in them.

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden’s beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land. (for Jim)

When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section,
the feeling disappears.

Those who don’t feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of spring water or take in sunset like a supper, those who don’t want to change, let them sleep.

When the remedy you have offered only increases the disease, then leave him who will not be cured, and tell your story to someone who seeks the truth.

Everything you possess of skill, and wealth, and handicraft, wasn’t it first merely a thought and a quest?

Let the water settle; you will see the moon and stars mirrored in your being.

Out beyond the ideas of right-doing or wrong-doing there is a field – I’ll meet you there.

RUMI