Author Archive
“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings.”
- Richard Dawkins
The Challenge of Today
One thing I’ve learned: Life is not a movie. As long as you think it should be a movie, you will always be disappointed. Life is better than a movie. It’s more exciting. It’s more real.
As long as we see life as it “should” be (according to us or someone else), we can never appreciate it for what it is. How will you ever see the beauty before you if you can only see what is missing?
The Challenges:
- To let go of what we want for others, who we want them to be, and let them show us their selves. Love them for who they are, today, not who we want them to be tomorrow.
- To know the difference between what we can control and what we can’t.
- To find a balance between living both actively and reflectively at once.
- To be open to what is to come.
“I am comforted by life’s stability, by earth’s unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.” – Pearl S. Buck
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” – Rachel Carson
Buddhism for Beginners
About Buddhism
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
- Atisha (11th century Tibetan Buddhist master)
