Words of Wisdom 19 (Jan 19 - Jun 19)

[winston]

Conversation is a dynamic interplay between each person’s choice to speak or listen.

When those choices are conscious and respectful, conversations tend to be more productive and enjoyable.

—Oren Jay Sofer, “When to Speak and When to Listen”

[winston]

When confusion and ignorance have been definitively eliminated, and goodness, caring, and wisdom have entirely taken their place, that is true happiness.

—Pamela Gayle White, “A Slow, True Path”

[winston]

Learning to drop what we’re doing, however momentarily, and to genuinely pay attention in the present moment, without attachment or bias, helps us become clear, just as a snow globe becomes clear when we stop shaking it and its flakes settle.

— Surya Das, “The Heart-Essence of Buddhist Meditation”

[winston]

Experiencing emptiness is also experiencing peace, and the potential of peace is its unfolding as harmony among all people, animals, plants, and things.

—Robert Aitken, “The Nature of the Precepts”

[winston]

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

MARK TWAIN

[winston]

Just as meditation requires an understanding of the practice as well as determination to carry it out, likewise it requires a sense of balance to determine when to push ourselves harder and when to step back and relax where we are, without falling into either of two extremes.

— Dudjom Dorjee, “Heartfelt Advice”

[winston]

We need to give up something. We can’t have it all. We can’t try to layer wisdom on top of confusion. The spiritual path is about what we give up, not what we get.

—Interview with Tim Olmsted by Helen Tworkov, “The Great Experiment”

[winston]

The reason that remarkable stories of forgiveness take our breath away is that we instantly feel the liberation in the lifting of boundaries, the end of separation, of “inside” and “outside.”

—Roshi Nancy Mujo Baker, “The Seventh Zen Precept”

[winston]

Learning to let thinking come and go, we can eventually understand a thought as a thought and a word as a word, and with this understanding we can find a measure of freedom from thoughts and words.

—Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”

[winston]

The wonderful thing about patience, unlike commodities, is the more we use it, the more we offer it, the more we have.

—Allan Lokos, “Patience With Self”