The life of the psyche may be compared to a great continuously circling river
which is illuminated in only one single area by the light of the sun.
-Carl Gustave Carus
Heaven opens inwards, chasms yawn,
Vast images in glittering dawn
Half-shewn are broken and withdrawn.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
When we know who or what we are worshipping,
we know who we are.
-Heather Mendel
Any knowledge or learning
is just like a drop of water fallen in a valley
when it is compared with the depth of experience.
-Tokusan Sengan
The sea
Will be a sea
Whatever the drop's philosophy.
-Attar of Neishapur
Thou are a drop in the ocean.
But if thou wilt hold the thought of the ocean,
thou wilt be the same.
-Zab-un Nissa
One, seven, three, five -
The truth you search for cannot be grasped.
As night advances, a bright moon illuminates the whole ocean;
The dragon's jewels are found in every wave.
Looking for the moon, it is here, in this wave, in the next.
-Xuedou
The great poems of heaven and hell have been written,
and the great poem of the earth remains to be written.
-Wallace Stevens
You create a vibration, a feeling,
a kind of intensity from deeply within you
that begins to condense and then expand
and change the chemistry of your whole body.
-Michael Shoemaker, "Chetanananda"
Your heart must become a sea of love.
Your mind must become a river of detachment.
-Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, "Sri Chinmoy"
Go, call the morning star: for when the day breaks forth,
It truly will reveal what fair is and what coarse.
-Anglelus Silesius
Three thousand miles away -
another one
who knows.
-A Zen Garden
Humanity is milk, wine divinity,
If you drink milk and wine, you'll greatly strengthened be.
-Angelus Silesius
If you haven't been fed,
be bread.
-Sufi Saying
One true man
of no rank.
-A Zen Forest
In the soft mud -
a thorn.
-A Zen Forest
To reflect is to reflect on the most subtle details of one's actions.
-Zengzi
A certain brother went to the Abbot
and asked him for a good word.
The elder said, "Go and sit in your cell,
your cell will tell you everything."
-Desert Fathers Zen
Whatever you have in your mind - forget it,
whatever you have in your hand - give it;
whatever is to be your fate - face it.
-Abu Sa'id ibn Abi-l-Khayr
whatever you have in your hand - give it;
whatever is to be your fate - face it.
-Abu Sa'id ibn Abi-l-Khayr
For things to reveal themselves to us,
we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Clinging is to insist on being someone -
Not to cling is to be free to be no one.
-Nagarjuna
Looking forward only,
Unknowing how to turn back.
-A Zen Forest
All perceivables or conceivables
are to be discarded as 'not this' 'not this.'
-Nisargadatta
-Nisargadatta
The body is like a bodhi tree
and the mind a mirror bright,
carefully we wipe them every day
and let no dust alight.
-Shen-hsiu
The body is not like a bodhi tree,
and there is not mirror bright,
since everything is empty to begin with,
where can the dust alight?
-Hui-neng
When the abrupt doctrine is understood
there is no need of discipline oneself in external things.
If one alway has the right view within one's mind,
one will never be deceived.
This is seeing into one's own nature.
-Hui-neng
The most mundane experiences of life
can be portals to the most sublime dimensions of reality
because ever experience contains within it the totality.
-Zvi-Ish Shalom
Whatever you have in your mind - forget it,
whatever you have in your hand - give it;
whatever is to be your fate - face it.
-Abu Sa'id ibn Abi-l-Khayr
whatever you have in your hand - give it;
whatever is to be your fate - face it.
-Abu Sa'id ibn Abi-l-Khayr
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman -
a rope over an abyss.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
However fast I am bound by earthly ties,
it will not take a moment to break them.
I shall break them by changing sides.
-Amire Minai
The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience
is the most difficult period in one's life.
-Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama
How much harder it is to bear one’s splendor
than one’s miseries!
-Douglas Harding
Food is the nourishment of the body;
thought is a refreshment to the mind;
love is the subsistence of the heart;
truth is the sustenance of the soul.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
May reality govern my every thought,
and truth be the master of my life.
-Alice Bailey (The Tibetan, Djwhal Khul)
My obligation is this:
To be transparent.
-Pablo Neruda
To be transparent.
-Pablo Neruda
Between you and It, nothing.
-Niffari
Fathomed at last!
Ocean's dried. Void burst.
Without an obstacle in sight,
It's everywhere.
-Joho
Akha, where there is no body to begin with,
The indivisible remains, as is.
-Akha
The indivisible remains, as is.
-Akha
By clinging to this thread of self
which is passing through the loom of life
we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth
into which it is being woven.
-Rabindranth Tagore
which is passing through the loom of life
we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth
into which it is being woven.
-Rabindranth Tagore
True enlightenment and wholeness arise
when we are without anxiety about imperfection.
-Seng T'san
Freely resting is to not imagine something out there.
Pervasiveness is to not bind something in here.
Unimpededness is to not dwell on some state in between.
-Ju Jamyang Dragpa
You are held within the web of life,
within flows of energy and intelligence
far exceeding your own.
-Joanna Macy
My Designs unchanged remain
Time may rage but rage in vain
High above Time's troubled fountains
On the great Atlantic mountains
In my Golden House on high
There they shine eternally
-William Blake
Without the Potter turns his wheel,
his work has no symmetry.
-Unknown
Our birthright is to walk through walls, to raise the dead.
-Chris Griscom
-Chris Griscom
There are no holy places and no holy people,
only holy moments, only moments of wisdom.
-Jack Kornfield
Nothing is better for man
than to be without aught,
having no asceticism, no theory, no practice.
When he is without all he is with all.
-Bistami
The sound of something struck
and I forgot everything I knew.
-Chikan
I stopped rambling on about the clouds,
and finally I saw the sky,
-Sahajanandabhairava
When the heart grieves over what it has lost,
the spirit rejoices over what it has left.
-Sufi Saying
the spirit rejoices over what it has left.
-Sufi Saying
The heart is the ombudsman of divine love in a person
(and the mind is the ombudsman of our particularity).
-Joseph Chilton Peace
(and the mind is the ombudsman of our particularity).
-Joseph Chilton Peace
My outward quest is at an end,
My Love is within my home,
My mind strays not,
It hath become pure.
-Ramananda
Until you're here, there's no way to get here.
Once you're here, there's no way to go.
-Yuan Mei
Yesterday we obeyed kings
and bent our necks before emperors.
But today we kneel only to the truth,
follow only beauty, and obey only love.
-Kahlil Gibran
One who loves the world as his own body
can be trusted with an empire.
-Lao Tzu
A white lotus;
the monk is deciding to cut it.
-Buson
Let your aim be one and single;
Let your hearts be joined in one -
the mind at rest in unison -
At peace will all, so my you be.
-Rig Veda
The brimming wine
in the golden bowl:
Don't hesitate - drink it
to the last drop!
-A Zen Garden
Though my hat may be small,
the entire universe is within it.
-Huang-Po
Every atom vibrates with joy
and is held together with love.
-17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje
and is held together with love.
-17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje
God is the light of lights, the Savior is the sun,
The Virgin is the moon, myself their joy I am.
-Angelus Silesius
I came forth from the mouth of the Most High,
and covered the earth like a mist.
I dwelt in high places, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud
Alone I have made the circuit of the vault of heaven
and walked in the depths of the abyss.
-Sirach
and covered the earth like a mist.
I dwelt in high places, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud
Alone I have made the circuit of the vault of heaven
and walked in the depths of the abyss.
-Sirach
Behold! thou hast become the light,
thou hast become the sound,
thou art thy Master and thy God.
Thou art thyself the object or thy search;
the voice unbroken, that resounds throughout eternity,
exempt from change, from sin exempt,
the seven sounds in one.
-Helena P. Blavatsky
thou hast become the sound,
thou art thy Master and thy God.
Thou art thyself the object or thy search;
the voice unbroken, that resounds throughout eternity,
exempt from change, from sin exempt,
the seven sounds in one.
-Helena P. Blavatsky
