"In the way we practice, we don't say, "Hell is bad and heaven is good" or "Get rid of hell and just seek heaven," but we encourage ourselves to develop an open heart and an open mind to heaven, to hell, to everything. Why? Because only then can we realize that no matter what comes along, we're always standing at the center of the world in the middle of sacred space, and everything that comes into that circle and exists with us there has come to teach us what we need to know."
"Life's work is to wake up, to let things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It's going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate. You can leave your marriage, you can quit your job, you can only go where people are going to praise you, you can manipulate your world until you're blue in the face to try to make it always smooth, but the same old demons will always come up until finally you have learned your lesson, the lesson they came to teach you. Then those same demons will appear as friendly, warm-hearted companions on the path. So that's why, this morning even though I was very hungry and tired, I was also very happy."
"As soon as you begin to believe in something, you can no longer see anything else."
"It has been said, quite accurately, that a psychotic person is drowning in the very same things that a mystic swims in."
No comments:
Post a Comment