Weekend Zen, December 21-22

This naked moment is the only 

guide we need to relax our mind.  

We need to trust this: in the midst of 

our daily life activities, the possibility

 to slow down, to stop, and then 

to appreciate, naturally unfolds. 

~ Elizabeth Searle Lamb

Daily Zen - Friday, December 20

Manifest plainness,

embrace simplicity,

reduce selfishness,

have few desires.

~ Lao Tzu

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 19

A good education is not so much

one which prepares a man to 

succeed in the world, as one which

enables him to sustain a failure.

~ Bernard Iddings Bell 

Daily Zen - Wednesday, December 18

Believe those 

who are seeking truth.

Doubt those who find it.

~ André Gide

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 17

Practically speaking, a life that is vowed

to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good

humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play,

and lots of walking brings us close to the

actual existing world and its wholeness.

~ Gary Snyder

Daily Zen - Monday, December 16

The greatest part of our happiness

depends on our dispositions,

not our circumstances.

~ Martha Washington

Weekend Zen, December 14-15

Each time a man stands up for an ideal,

or acts to improve the lot of others,

or strikes out against injustice, he sends

forth a tiny ripple of hope...and crossing

each other from different centers of energy...

those ripples build a current that can sweep

down the mightiest walls of oppression...

~ Robert F. Kennedy

Daily Zen - Friday, December 13

If the doors of perception

were cleansed, everything 

would appear as it is, infinite.

~ William Blake

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 12

You must learn to be still

in the midst of activity

and to be vibrantly

alive in repose.

~ Indira Gandhi

Daily Zen - Wednesday, December 11

To live is so startling

it leaves little time

for anything else.

~ Emily Dickinson

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 10

The highest wisdom

is kindness.

~ The Talmud

Daily Zen - Monday, December 9

Life can only be 

understood backward,

but it must be 

lived forward.

~ Soren Kierkegaard

Weekend Zen, December 7-8

Nobody is destined only

to happiness or to pain.

The wheel of life takes 

me up and down by turn.

~ Kālidāsa

Daily Zen - Friday, December 6

...You don't need to do anything, because if you 

see yourself in the correct way, you are all as 

much extraordinary phenomena of nature 

as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, 

the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars...

You are all just like that, and

there is nothing wrong with you at all.

~ Alan Watts

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 5

How we spend our days is,

of course, how we spend our lives.

What we do with this hour, and

that one, is what we are doing.

~ Ada Limón

Daily Zen - Wednesday, December 4

The biggest gift you can give is to be

absolutely present. And when you're 

worrying about whether you're hopeful

or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic,

who cares? The main thing is that you're

showing up, that you're here, and that you're

finding ever more capacity to love this world...

~ Joanna Macy

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 3

See what you are.

Don't ask others, 

don't let others tell you

about yourself.

Look within and see.

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Daily Zen - Monday, December 2

There is nowhere else than here.  

The only gate is now. The only 

doorway is your own body and mind. 

There's nowhere to go. There's no destination. 

It's not something to aim for in the afterlife. 

It's simply the quality of this moment.

~ Jane Hirshfield

Weekend Zen, November 30 and December 1

The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive. 

The great opportunity is where you are. 

Do not despise your own place and hour. 

Every place is under the stars, 

every place is of the world.

~ John Burroughs

Daily Zen - Friday, November 29

Let nothing perturb you, 

nothing frighten you.

All things pass. 

Patience achieves everything.

~ Teresa of Ávila