Enlightenment

"Make no mistake about it - enlightenment is a destructive process.   It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier.  Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth.  It's seeing through the facade of pretense.  It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true."  Adyashanti

Garden and Life

A Standing Ground by Wendell Berry

From his book New Collected Poems, 2012, p.133

However just and anxious I have been
I will stop and step back
from the crowd of those who may agree
with what I say, and be apart.
There is no earthly promise of life or peace
but where the roots branch and weave
their patient silent passages in the dark;
uprooted, I have been furious without an aim.
I am not bound for any public place,
but for ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and in the heat of the day climbed up
into the healing shadow of the woods.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn
and pick dew-wet berries in a cup.

Silence

"Silence is something that comes from our own hearts, and not from someone outside. If we are truly silent, then no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can enjoy the silence. Silence does not only mean not talking and not doing loud things. Silence means that we're not disturbed inside, there's no talking inside."   - Thich Nhat Hanh

Seeds of Love

We all need a personal inner space of peace and safety, like birds seeking refuge, returning to a familiar place time and again. With mindfulness as our practice, our first place of refuge is to return to the present. "I have arrived, I am home in the here and in the now, I am solid, I am free." Each breath can be an opportunity to gather our energy and return to our real "home," which is within.   Thich Nhat Hahn

Aspirations for Living

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony."   William Henry Channing, 1810 - 1884

Peacemaking

“We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds--our own prejudices, fears and ignorance...To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women.” --Thich Nhat Hanh

Peace

"Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins there and ends there."  Byron Katie

Spirtual Adventure

"I had been on an adventure, searching for a genuine and fearless kind of spirituality.  Id didn't want to become anything more than my most vibrant, peaceful and grateful self.  I wanted to find a sacred path through the fullness of life in the real world -a daily discipline that reached into the heavens even as it dug deeply into my psyche, helping me to overcome resistance, falseness and mistrust."  Elizabeth Lesser

Pain vs. Suffering

"There will always be pain in life.   This is something we learn in life as we progress spiritually.  We also learn that if we resist pain, if we fear it, then we create additional pain, called suffering.  Our resistance to pain stands between us and full-emodied living; it keeps us at war with our problems and from making peace with life's dual nature."   Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hanneli's Wish

"May the integrity of Peace and Truth be celebrated.  May love and courage shine in your heart stronger than ever, and may you find within you the light of a thousand suns to blaze through whatever challenges you face in times ahead.

May you meet the suffering of the world with compassion, both for yourself and for others.

May you shatter your self-imposed limitations with fierce honesty and persistent love.

May you invite the demons to show their faces with the confidence of your inner strength, knowing there is no darkness you cannot face with love in your heart.   May you find yourself in many unexpected fields of wild flowers and circles of compassionate friends.  May you share laughter and tears with openness and freedom. 

May we recognize the heart of ourselves in the eyes of each we meet. 

May you follow your aspirations, your heart and your dreams more fully than ever before.   When you feel awkward, know you are walking your own edge and growth and healing are also present.  Deep breath....

Peaceful Warriors

"Peaceful warriors have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water clears. They remain unmoving until the right time, so the right action arises by itself. They do not seek fulfillment, but wait with open arms to welcome all things."
-   Dan Millman

Contradiction

"When we discover the supreme happiness of unity within ourselves we reconcile what once seemed irreconcilable.  Opposites become partners.   Our longing for stability in a constantly changing world becomes humorous.  Our desires for connection and our troubles with intimacy become grist for the spiritual mill.  We allow diversity to flourish within the context of unity.   We understand that the unadulterated, pure, singleness of feeling we long for can be experienced only when we allow all feelings to live in peace within our hearts."  Elizabeth Lesser

Letting Go

"Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don’t accept praise or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if ...you let go completely you will have complete peace."  –Ajahn Chah

Serenity

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. –Lao-Tze

"Like the women of Liberia, we broke the barriers of religion, race, ethnicity, status and we stepped out and redeemed out time.  We broke all the barriers that patriarchy has set in front of us and we said "War is nonsense.  Peace is what we want.  We will take it if you don't give it to us."  We can never, ever redeem our time if we continue to wait for the men to give it to us.  Is it in your home?  Is it in your community?  It is time for us to break the barriers that separate us.  It's time for us to bind together.  Hold on to that thing that binds us, even though patriarchy wants us to ignore it. If you don't know what I'm talking about when you go to take a bath, find another woman to stand  by you.  The thing that unites us is our Womanhood.  It moves beyond child, it moves beyond tribe, it moves beyond culture, it moves beyond everything.  As women, we need to hold together.  As women, we need to redeem our time.  As women we need to take it back.  As in the 60's and 70's.  As women, we need to be more radical.  There is nothing wrong with stepping out there and saying we are claiming our space.  Why are there still issues of discrimination?  You need to take it!  The men will not give it because it is shifting the status quo.  You need to take it. "  Lehmay  Gbowee

Happiness

"We can find stable happiness; we can learn to have long and pleasurable relationships; we can be at peace.  If we are willing to become warriors - not against others, but against our own dishonesty and defensiveness - then we can indeed grow and change and journey into freedom.   It's not enough to aim for pain relief.  We can aim for something much more dependable and luminous than that.   If we aspire to discover the true self, the know what we love and what we want, to be honest, and to take full responsibility for our strengths and our weaknesses, then we will be on our way."   Elizabeth Lesser

Spiritual Adventure

"I had been on an adventure, searching for a genuine and fearless kind of spirituality.   I didn't want to become anything other than my most vibrant, peaceful and grateful self.   I wanted to find a sacred path through the fullness of life in the real world - a daily discipline that reached into the heavens even as it dug deeply into my psyche, helping me to overcome resistance, falseness and mistrust."  Elizabeth Lesser

Happiness

"Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive. Inner peace does not." ~Eckhart Tolle

Be Here Now

"To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now." ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Born in Soul

"To be born in soul again and again is a positive experience, but it also involves pain.   It means entering a new kind of life just when the old one might have grown comfortable.   Familiarity can bring tranquility, but you also need the sting and chaos of the new.   To be alive entails both of these qualities, the yin and yang of peace and pain."  Thomas Moore