The lesson that life constantly enforces is "Look underfoot." You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world.

(John Burroughs)

Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back - in many ways it is a feast for for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. (Frederick Buechner)

The value of life does not depend upon the place we occupy. It depends upon the way we occupy that place. ~St. Therese de Lisieux

Shantideva's prayer

This is one of H.H. the Dalai Lama’s favourite prayers, extracted from “A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life” by Shantideva, a Buddhist master from the monastic university of Nalanda, India and composed in the eighth century of the Christian era.

May all beings everywhere
Plagued by sufferings of body and mind
Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy
By virtue of my merits.

May no living creature suffer,
Commit evil, or ever fall ill.
May no one be afraid or belittled,
With a mind weighed down by depression.

May the blind see forms
And the deaf hear sounds,
May those whose bodies are worn with toil
Be restored on finding repose.

May the naked find clothing,
The hungry find food;
May the thirsty find water
And delicious drinks.

May the poor find wealth,
Those weak with sorrow find joy;
May the forlorn find hope,
Constant happiness, and prosperity.

May there be timely rains
And bountiful harvests;
May all medicines be effective
And wholesome prayers bear fruit.

May all who are sick and ill
Quickly be freed from their ailments.
Whatever diseases there are in the world,
May they never occur again.

May the frightened cease to be afraid
And those bound be freed;
May the powerless find power,
And may people think of benefiting each other.

For as long as space remains,
For as long as sentient beings remain,
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the miseries of the world.

The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi

This suggests that evil cannot by itself flourish in this world. It can only do so if it is allied with some good. This was the principle underlying non-cooperation - that the evil system which the British Colonial Government represents, and which has endured only because of the support it receives from good people, cannot survive if that support is withdrawn.

Austerity is my sacrificial fire, says the monk, and my life is the place where the fire is kindled. Mental and physical effort are my ladle for the oblation, and my body is the dung fuel for the fire, my actions my firewood. I offer up an oblation praised by the wise seers consisting of my restraint, effort and calm. (William Dalrymple)

William Dalrymple

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

To my surprise, for all the development that has taken place, many of the issues that I found my holy men discussing and agonizing about remained the same eternal quandaries that absorbed the holy men of classical India thousands of year ago: the quest for material success and comfort against the claims of the life of the spirit; the call of the life of action against the life of contemplation; the way of stability against the lure of the open road; personal devotion against conventional or public religion; textual orthodoxy against emotional appeal of mysticism; the age old war of duty and desire. (Introduction xv)

Anna Kamienska

from The Notebooks

* Music teaches us the passing of time. It teaches the value of a moment by giving that moment value. And it passes. It's not afraid to go.

* There is a God of Solitude. He covers me closely, like the air. I study Him blindly, by touch. Only His body is everywhere, elusive, impalpable.

* A state of inner readiness and waiting. I'm open to all annunciations.

* One must live and love, and pray, as one writes. In labour and patience, attentively, slowly.

* I pray in words. I pray in poems. I want to learn to pray through breathing, through dreams and sleeplessness, through love and renunciation. I pray through snow that falls outside the window. I pray with the tears that do not end.

* The sense of loneliness is an error. We are and move in a great crowd of those who are now, were and will be. In that great river.

(translated by Clare Cavanagh)

If you go out and confirm the ten thousand things, this is delusion; if you let the ten thousand things confirm you, this is enlightenment. (Dogen Zenji)

Become a dedicated spirit.

The only question is whether you will respond, whether you will not turn away, whether you will turn towards it - whether, in effect, you will become a dedicated spirit. (David Whyte)