The quality will remain when the price is forgotten.
Our tendency in life is to avoid things that frighten us. But in order to become whole, we need to go deeper and deeper into ourselves by reaching further and further into the things we fear.
Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning. . . look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.
When we bear witness, when we become the situation - homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death - the right action arises by itself. We don't have to worry about what to do. We don't have to figure out solutions ahead of time. Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.
I always have this red nose in my pocket, and if it looks like I'm taking things too seriously, or the person I'm talking to is taking them too seriously, I put the nose on. It doesn't matter what we're doing or talking about, it doesn't matter if we agree or disagree, the nose changes everything.
When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what's happening right now. When I spend time with students, they tell me that they've read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don't think they're living up to. And I tell them, “Take care of yourself right now. Befriend what's happening, not just who you're supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute?
In every area, working with what you habitually reject is one of the best ways to facilitate growth and transformation.
What should I do?" "Throw up in your typewriter every morning. " "Yeah. " "Clean up every noon.
I definitely went through my magic phase. I think all little boys do at some point or another - they get fascinated by magic tricks.
No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
Life — how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.