Thought for November 2011
Notice that the moment you become unhappy is usually the moment you attempt to control another person.
Hugh Prather
Thought for October 2011
The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms;
and to confide in one's self, and become something
of worth and value is the best and safest course.
Michelangelo
Thought for September 2011
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science.
Those to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead: their eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein
Thought for August 2011
Happiness (and self-actualization) should not be pursued.
They ensue.
They are a by-product of engagement with life.
Viktor Frankl
Thought for July 2011
Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life,
and every setting sun be to you as its close:—
then let every one of these short lives
leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others—
some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves.
John Ruskin
Thought for June 2011
The most fundamental aggression to ourselves
is to remain ignorant
by not having the courage and respect
to look at ourselves honestly and gently.
Pema Chödrönh
Thought for May 2011
Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge
and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
A.A. Milne in Winnie The Pooh
Thought for April 2011
It's far more important to know
what person the disease has
than what disease the person has.
Hippocrates
Thought for March 2011
Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Thought for February 2011
If you look for ugliness, you will find it everywhere.
When you look for beauty, you will find that everywhere.
Narayana
Thought for January 2011
Children have a remarkable talent for not taking the adult world
with the kind of respect that we are so confident it ought to be given.
To the irritation of authority figures of all sorts, children expend
considerable energy in clowning around. They refuse to appreciate the
gravity of our monumental concerns, while we forget that if we were
to become more like children our concerns might not be so monumental.
Conrad Hyers
Thought for December 2010
It's possible to have too much in life. Too many clothes jade
our appreciation for new ones; too much money can put us
out of touch with life; too much free time can dull the edge
of the soul. We need sometimes to come very near the bone so
that we can taste the marrow of life rather than its superfluities.
Joan Chittister
Thought for November 2010
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life
comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
Archibald Rutledge
Thought for October 2010
The aster has not wasted spring and summer because it has not blossomed.
It has been all the time preparing for what is to follow,
and in autumn it is the glory of the field,
and only the frost lays it low.
So there are many people who must live forty or fifty years,
and have the crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time can come;
but their lives have not been wasted.
Henry Ward Beecher
Thought for September 2010
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
G.K. Chesterton
Thought for August 2010
Genuine compassion is based on the recognition that others
have the right to happiness just like yourself, and therefore
even your enemy is a human being with the same wish for
happiness as you, and the same right to happiness as you.
A sense of concern developed on this basis is what we call
compassion; it extends to everyone, irrespective of whether
the person’s attitude toward you is hostile or friendly.
the Dalai Lama
Thought for July 2010
Courage is required not only in a person's occasional crucial decision
for one's own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions
which place the bricks in the structure of one's building of oneself
into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.
Rollo May
Thought for June 2010
People should never be ashamed to own they have been
in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that
they are wiser today than they were yesterday.
Alexander Pope
Thought for May 2010
Look to this day
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the truths and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of achievement.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
from the Sanskrit
Thought for April 2010
I think with intuition.
The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.
Intuition tells a man his purpose in life.
One never goes wrong following his feelings.
I don’t mean emotions, I mean feelings,
for feelings and intuition are one.
Albert Einstein
Thought for March 2010
The moment one gives close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.
Henry Miller
Thought for February 2010
The universe is full
of magical things
patiently waiting for
our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts
(also attributed to William Butler Yeats)
Thought for January 2010
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. . . .
Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow
speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again,
though it contradict every thing you said to-day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought for December 2009
It doesn't much matter
what you do in particular,
so much as you live
while you're doing it.
Henry James
Thought for November 2009
As long as anyone believes
that their ideal and purpose
is outside them,
that it is above the clouds,
in the past
or in the future,
they will go outside themselves
and seek fulfillment
where it cannot be found.
They will
look for solutions and answers
at every point except
where they can be found
--in themselves.
Erich Fromm
Thought for October 2009
Resistance to what is
is the greatest waste
of our capacity to flourish.
D Ward
Thought for September 2009
Three Rules of Work:
Out of clutter find simplicity;
From discord find harmony;
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
Thought for August 2009
The invariable mark of wisdom
is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought for July 2009
We cannot change anything until we accept it.
Carl Jung
Thought for June 2009
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.
Mother Teresa
Thought for May 2009
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner:
"Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and
evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog
all the time."
When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied,
"The one I feed the most."
unattributed
Thought for April 2009
You would worry less
about what other people
thought of you
if you knew
how seldom they did.
Paul McKenna
Thought for March 2009
When you allow hope
to triumph over the past
you are setting yourself free
from your pain.
D Ward
Thought for February 2009
Do you seek answers only in times of distress?
Could that search in times of joy
eradicate the need to re-visit
the same distresses?
D Ward
Thought for January 2009
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
Chuang Tzu
Thought for December 2008
When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Thought for November 2008
Whether one believes in a religion or not,
and whether one believes in rebirth or not,
there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.
Dalai Lama
Thought for October 2008
It can be more difficult to accept generosity than bestow it.
Deborah Ward
Thought for September 2008
In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Thought for August 2008
Loving is Allowing.
White Bull
Thought for July 2008
A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
Charles Dickens
Thought for June 2008
Do not speak- unless it improves on silence.
Thought for May 2008
Within the body there are billions of different particles. Similarly, there are many different thoughts and a variety of states of mind. It is wise to take a close look into the world of your mind and to make the distinction between beneficial and harmful states of mind. Once you can recognize the value of good states of mind, you can increase or foster them.
Dahli Lama
Thought for April 2008
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much
as your own unguarded thoughts.
The Buddha
Thought for February 2008
We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of
horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things
going from one quick base to another, often with a frenzy
that wears us out.
We collect data, things, people, ideas,
"profound experiences," never penetrating any of them. . . .
But there are other times. There are times when we stop.
We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory.
We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.
James Carroll
Thought for January 2008
If there was nothing wrong in the world
there wouldn't be anything for us to do.
George Bernard Shaw
Thought for December 2007
Our dependency makes slaves out of us,
especially if this dependency is a
dependency of our self-esteem.
If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back
from everybody, then you make everybody your judge.
Fritz Perls
Thought for November 2007
Your vision will become clear
only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.
Carl Jung
Thought for October 2007
When you do things from your soul
you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
When action comes from another section,
the feeling disappears.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Thought for September 2007
If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion.
If you want to be happy,
practice compassion.
The Dalai Lama
Thought for August 2007
One with outward courage
dares to die;
One with inward courage
dares to live.
Lao-tzu
Thought for July 2007
Because one believes in oneself,
one doesn't try to convince others.
Because one is content with oneself,
one doesn't need others' approval.
Because one accepts oneself,
the whole world accepts him or her.
The Tao Te Ching
Thought for June 2007
We can hear things that are true
but until we feel them for ourself
they contain little meaning.
Deborah Ward
Thought for May 2007
When you compare yourself to another person
how much of yourself are you forgetting
and
how much of the other are you not seeing?
Deborah Ward
Thought for March 2007
Can you consider that failure may be nothing more than a gentle
nudge to ensure you do not stray too far from the path of your
true heart's desire?
Deborah Ward
Thought for February 2007
Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that
but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.
Willliam Butler Yeats
Thought for January 2007
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting
somewhere behind the morning.
J.B. Priestley
Thought for December 2006
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon
does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light
is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch
wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop
on the grass.
Dogen
Thought for November 2006
Two monks were once traveling together down a muddy road.
A heavy rain was falling. Coming around the bend,
they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash,
unable to cross the intersection.
"Come
on, girl," said the first monk. Lifting her
in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
The
second monk did not speak again until that night
when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer
could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females,"
he said. "It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"
"I
left the girl there," the first monk said.
"Are you still carrying her?"
Thought for October 2006
Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed
a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it
up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung.
He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell
in. The monk saved the scorpion and was again stung.
The other monk asked him, "Friend, why do you continue
to save the scorpion when you know its nature is to sting?"
"Because," the monk replied, "to save it is my
nature."
|
