Connecting to your breath when thoughts or images arise is like spotting a friend in a crowd: You don’t have to shove everyone else aside or order them to go away; you just direct your attention, your enthusiasm, your interest toward your friend.
- Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
- Hosea Ballou
You exist as an idea in your mind
- Shunryu Suzuki, Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart
Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you.
- George Whitefield
Don’t hope for a life without problems. An easy life results in a judgmental and lazy mind. So an ancient once said, “Accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life.
- Kyong Ho, Thousand Peaks: Korean Zen - Tradition and Teachers
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
- Leonardo da Vinci
Just as rain does not break through a well-thatched house, so passion never penetrates a well-developed mind.
- Akkosa Sutta: Insult
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau
Real flowers are much more beautiful than plastic ones, in part because of their impermanence. People appreciate the seasons, the autumn and the spring, because the seasons are a process of change. Each season is a precious time. In this way, impermanence is beauty.
- Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
- William Ellery Channing
Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.
- George Washington
Whatever is not yours: let go of it. Your letting go of it will be for your long-term happiness & benefit.
- Na Tumhaka Sutta: Not Yours
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
- Thomas Merton
I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
May those who insult me to my face,
Or cause me harm in any other way,
Even those who disparage me in secret,
Have the good fortune to awaken.
- Shantideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra, Chapter 3, translated by Adam Pearcey
Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Just as rain does not break through a well-thatched house, so passion never penetrates a well-developed mind.
- Akkosa Sutta: Insult
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
- Peter Drucker
The good renounce (attachment for) everything. The virtuous do not prattle with a yearning for pleasures. The wise show no elation or depression when touched by happiness or sorrow.
- Panditavagga: The Wise
He who angers you conquers you.
- Elizabeth Kenny
