I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.
– St. Thomas Aquinas
In truth there’s only deathlessness.
The whole created universe is made of living energy that moves and oscillates and shines. This boundless store of restless cosmic energy has terrible destructive power. It’s like an upraised thunderbolt: to petty ego’s fragile life, identified with little body, sense and mind.
But if, transcending petty ego, all the world is known as life – as only living energy – then how can death arise at all? For one who knows the world like this, as only life, there is no death. In truth, there’s only deathlessness.
– From the Upanishads
The stillness of wisdom
A mind that has come to the stillness of wisdom shall know being, shall know what it is to love. Love is neither personal nor impersonal. Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity; it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.
– Aldous Huxley
This morning I pray
This morning, as I kindle the fire on my hearth,
I pray that the flame of God’s love may burn in
my heart and in the hearts of all I meet today.
I pray that no envy or malice,
no hatred or fear, may smother the flame.
I pray that indifference and apathy, contempt and pride,
may not pour like cold water on the fire.
Instead, may the spark of God’s love
light the love in my heart,
that it may burn brightly through the day.
And may I warm those who are lonely,
whose hearts are cold and lifeless,
so that all may know the comfort of God’s love.
– From the Gaelic tradition
Much easier to carry
You’ve traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the truth.
So many days in the archives, copying, copying.
The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage.
Here! I’ve picked you a bunch of wild flowers.
Their meaning is the same but they’re much easier to carry.
– Hsu Yun
Dandelions
A man who took great pride in his lawn found himself with a large crop of dandelions.
He tried every method he knew to get rid of them. Still they plagued him.
Finally he wrote the department of agriculture.
He enumerated all the things he had tried and closed his letter with the question:
“What shall I do now?”
In due course the reply came:
“We suggest you learn to love them.”
– Anthony de Mello