It’s fantastic to look at people and see that they really, deep down, are enlightened. They’re It. They’re faces of the divine.

And they look at you, and they say ‘oh no, but I’m not divine. I’m just ordinary little me.’ You look at them in a funny way, and here you see the buddha nature looking out of their eyes, straight at you, and saying it’s not, and saying it quite sincerely.

And that’s why, when you get up against a great guru, the Zen master, or whatever, he has a funny look in his eyes. When you say ‘I have a problem, guru. I’m really mixed up, I don’t understand,’ he looks at you in this queer way, and you think ‘oh dear me, he’s reading my most secret thoughts. He’s seeing all the awful things I am, all my cowardice, all my shortcomings.’

But that’s not what he’s looking at. He’s giving you a funny look for quite another reason altogether. He’s giving you a funny look because he sees in you the Brahman, the Godhead, just claiming it’s ‘poor little me’.

~ Alan Watts, Lectures on Zen/Spiritual Alchemy

In the end, only three things matter:
how much you loved, how gently you lived,
and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

--attributed to the Buddha,
and paraphrased by many

Love that ends is the shadow of love; true love is without beginning or end.
--Hazrat Inayat Khan
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I think one of the coolest things about yoga is that it shows you the strengths that you have. People think of it as a way to increase flexibility and strength, concentration and calmness. But my body continues to amaze me. It can do things I had no idea it could do. And at this age, starting this late, with these damages already done. It makes me think back to a time when humans were quadruped...how were we strong then? Could we run? Could we swing in trees from our arms? Part of the way we are built is still better for being quadruped than for sitting in computer chairs. Think of the way our discs compress in our backs. They wouldn't collapse on us and cause such trouble if we were better evolved to walk erect. But there are aspects of our construction that harken back to reptiles, the bones of the spine and the way the deep core muscles attach is just like that of a snake. And we can move like snakes, if we want to. If we're not frozen up yet. If we're willing to relax into what our bodies are naturally designed to do. The mind and spirit will follow. What kind of strength do you think it takes to sit erect (under the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya) for seven days and seven nights? Or was that a flood? Matters not. Seven seconds will ( do.Collapse )

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
~Buddha

"In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves."
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In all things be a master
Of what you do and say and think.
Be free.
Are you quiet? Quieten your body.
Quieten your mind.
By your own efforts
Waken yourself, watch,
And live joyfully.
Follow the truth of the way.
Reflect upon it.
Make it your own.
Live it.
It will always sustain you.

- Buddha from the Dhammapada

"Through mantra, we no longer cling to the reality of the speech and sound encountered in life, but experience it as essentially empty. Then confusion of the speech aspect of our being is transformed into enlightened awareness." -Kalu Rinpoche
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