Monday, February 28, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Sages
"Every person has a sage within his breast. It is just that people do not full believe in this sage and bury it away." Wang Yangming
"At first, human nature is basically good. There is originally no distinction between the sage and the ordinary person. It is because of the energy of accumulated habits that there comes to be a difference between sages and ordinary people." Liu I-Ming
"At first, human nature is basically good. There is originally no distinction between the sage and the ordinary person. It is because of the energy of accumulated habits that there comes to be a difference between sages and ordinary people." Liu I-Ming
Saturday, February 26, 2005
A Most Important Lesson
A Most Important Lesson by: Author Unknown, Source Unknown
During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely, this was some kind of joke.
I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.
Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'hello'." "I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Eyes to Open
"The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don't have to gain, develop, or attain them. We're like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight. We don't need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we really are -- as soon as we quit pretending we're small or unholy." author unknown
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Bag of Nails
Author unknown
Once upon a time there was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he should hammer a nail in the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. But gradually, the number of daily nails dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the first day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He proudly told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out, it won't matter how many times you say 'I'm sorry', the wound is still there."
Monday, February 21, 2005
The Cocoon
"The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in a cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our patterns of behavior and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or fresh ground." Chogyam Trungpa
Friday, February 18, 2005
Heaven and Hell
From: Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness
"There's a nother story that you may have read that has to do with what we call heaven and hell, life and death, good and bad. It's a story about how those things don't really exist except as a creation of our own minds. It goes likes this: A big burly samurai comes to the wise man and says, 'Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.; And the roshi looks him in the face and says: 'Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you?' The samurai starts to get purple in the face, his hair starts to stand up, but the roshi won't stop, he keeps saying, 'A miserable worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?' Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword, and he's just about to cut off the head of the roshi. The roshi then says, 'That's hell.' The samurai, who is in fact a sensitive person, instantly gets it, that he just created his own hell; he was deep in hell. It was black and hot, filled with hatred and self-protection, anger and resentment, so much so that he was going to kill a man. Tears fill his eyes and he starts to cry and he puts his palms together and the roshi says, 'That's heaven.' "
"There's a nother story that you may have read that has to do with what we call heaven and hell, life and death, good and bad. It's a story about how those things don't really exist except as a creation of our own minds. It goes likes this: A big burly samurai comes to the wise man and says, 'Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.; And the roshi looks him in the face and says: 'Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you?' The samurai starts to get purple in the face, his hair starts to stand up, but the roshi won't stop, he keeps saying, 'A miserable worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?' Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword, and he's just about to cut off the head of the roshi. The roshi then says, 'That's hell.' The samurai, who is in fact a sensitive person, instantly gets it, that he just created his own hell; he was deep in hell. It was black and hot, filled with hatred and self-protection, anger and resentment, so much so that he was going to kill a man. Tears fill his eyes and he starts to cry and he puts his palms together and the roshi says, 'That's heaven.' "
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
How to Rule
From: Chogyam Trungpa's, Shambhala The Sacred Path of the Warrior
"You begin to see that there are seasons in your life in the same way as there are seasons in nature. There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally, of course, there are times that are cold and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are. If you realize that each phase of your life is a natural occurrence, then you need not be swayed, pushed up and down by changes in circumstance and mood that life brings. You find that you have an opportunity to be fully in the world at times and to show yourself as a brave and proud individual in any circumstance."
"You begin to see that there are seasons in your life in the same way as there are seasons in nature. There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally, of course, there are times that are cold and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are. If you realize that each phase of your life is a natural occurrence, then you need not be swayed, pushed up and down by changes in circumstance and mood that life brings. You find that you have an opportunity to be fully in the world at times and to show yourself as a brave and proud individual in any circumstance."
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Carl Rogers
One of my favorite quotes:
"The actualising tendency can of course be thwarted or warped, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism remember that in my boyhood the potato bin in which we stored our winter supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small basement window. The conditions were unfavourable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout - pale white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow two or three feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. They were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become a plant, never mature, never fulfil their real potentiality. But under the most adverse circumstances they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the back wards of state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavourable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet the directional tendency in them is to be trusted. The clue to understanding their behaviour is that they are striving; in the only ways they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To us the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life's desperate attempt to become itself."
"The actualising tendency can of course be thwarted or warped, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism remember that in my boyhood the potato bin in which we stored our winter supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small basement window. The conditions were unfavourable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout - pale white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow two or three feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. They were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become a plant, never mature, never fulfil their real potentiality. But under the most adverse circumstances they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the back wards of state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavourable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet the directional tendency in them is to be trusted. The clue to understanding their behaviour is that they are striving; in the only ways they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To us the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life's desperate attempt to become itself."