Who can ever understand exactly why or how it comes down as it does? The bottom line is, here we are. Whatever, wherever we are, this is what we’ve got. It’s up to us whether we do it as easy time or hard time.
Life, like any other exciting story, is bound to have painful and scary parts, boring and depressing parts, but it’s a brilliant story, and it’s up to us how it will turn out in the end.
This understanding has a dual edge: On the one hand it increases your confidence and dignity. On the other hand, it places full responsibility on you if you fail to make the change you set out to make. But this is a good thing, not a guilt trip.
If I am practicing spiritual poverty, which says that I own nothing, then the problems aren’t mine and neither are the energy and compassion pouring through my heart to try to solve them.
I could characterize nearly any spiritual practice as simply this: identify and quit, identify and quit, identify and quit. Identify the myriad forms of limitation and delusion we place upon ourselves, and muster the courage to quit each one.
This is the first step toward understanding the process of real, lasting change: simply knowing with certainty that you can do whatever you need to do.
Without loving and caring for others, most of us stand little chance of communing with God/the Divine Wisdom, no matter how many years we may spend in silent prayer.
Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace…and care properly for this planet we all share.
We’re all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet.
You may study with the highest teachers, but you will find no one but yourself teaching you. You may travel the world over, yet find nothing but yourself, reflected the world over.
So if you now find yourself in a cell, take heart that of all the teachers in the world, out of all the places in the world, you still have with you the only ultimate ingredient of your journey: yourself.
