According to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather canteen so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher. After a four-day journey he presented the water to the old man who took a deep drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The young man returned to his village with a happy heart.
Later, the teacher let another student taste the water. He spat it out, saying it was awful. It apparently had become stale because of the old leather container. The student challenged his teacher: "Master, the water was foul. Why did you pretend to like it?"
The teacher replied, "You only tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of loving-kindness and nothing could be sweeter."
I think we understand this lesson best when we receive innocent gifts of love from young children. Whether it's a ceramic tray or a macaroni bracelet, the natural and proper response is appreciation and expressed thankfulness because we love the idea within the gift.
Gratitude doesn't always come naturally. Unfortunately, most children and many adults value only the thing given rather than the feeling embodied in it. We should remind ourselves and teach our children about the beauty and purity of feelings and expressions of gratitude. After all, gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.
Congratulations! You're not perfect! It's ridiculous to want to be perfect anyway. But then, everybody's ridiculous sometimes, except perfect people. You know what perfect is? Perfect is not eating or drinking or talking or moving a muscle or making even the teensiest mistake. Perfect is never doing anything wrong - which means never doing anything at all. Perfect is boring! So you're not perfect! Wonderful! Have fun! Eat things that give you bad breath! Trip over your own shoelaces! Laugh! Let somebody else laugh at you! Perfect people never do any of those things. All they do is sit around and sip weak tea and think about how perfect they are. But they're really not one-hundred-percent perfect anyway. You should see them when they get the hiccups! Phooey! Who needs 'em? You can drink pickle juice and imitate gorillas and do silly dances and sing stupid songs and wear funny hats and be as imperfect as you please and still be a good person. Good people are hard to find nowadays. And they're a lot more fun than perfect people any day of the week.
~Stephen Manes, (Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days!)
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For if you forgive others for their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
~Jesus, (Matthew 6:14)
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To forgive is to set a prisoner free
and discover that the prisoner was you.
~Lewis B. Smedes
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Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds
on the heel that has crushed it.
~Mark Twain
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When you hold resentment toward another,
you are bound to that person or condition
by an emotional link that is stronger than steel.
Forgiveness is the only way
to dissolve that link and get free.
~Catherine Ponder
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Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.
~Lewis B. Smedes
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Hope is like a road in the country;
there was never a road,
but when many people walk on it,
the road comes into existence.
~Lin Yutang
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Your world is a garden
from which you remove weeds of doubt
and replace them with seeds of hope.
~Innerspace
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Hope is the companion of power,
and mother of success;
for who so hopes strongly
has within him the gift of miracles.
~Samuel Smiles
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Practice hope.
As hopefulness becomes a habit,
you can achieve a permanently happy spirit.
~Norman Vincent Peale
Humility
is the embarrassment you feel
when you tell people how wonderful you are.
~Laurence J. Peter
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Anger is weakness.
Tolerance is bravery.
Humility makes you strong.
~Innerspace
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Humility dismisses nothing, rather, it takes even small things into consideration. It recognises that whatever life presents, needs to be respected. Small things are easily found in something big, but inside little things there is often greatness.
~Innerspace
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Humility means to understand the self and through that to understand others as well. Humility is the attitude where a person is not attached to his or her opinion and feelings. Humility is the most natural expression of truth. It helps in better understanding of truth. Humility is the basis for maintaining self-respect. Humility does not mean bowing down and being subservient to others. Humility allows you to see benefit in everything. Developing humility brings a lot of comfort and ease into your life.
Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic, that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -- and there is no experiment up to now that has found any center in the brain which corresponds to awareness. The whole work of meditation is to make you aware of all that is "mind" and dis identify yourself from it. That very separation is the greatest revolution that can happen to man. Now you can do and act on only that which makes you more joyous, fulfills you, gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty. But this is possible only if the master in you is awake. Right now the master is fast asleep. And the mind, the servant, is playing the role of master. And the servant is created by the outside world, it follows the outside world and its laws. Once your awareness becomes a flame, it burns up the whole slavery that the mind has created. There is no blissfulness more precious than freedom, than being a master of your own destiny.
~Osho
"Wow...thats beautiful!" Is either a cry or a thought when faced with the mountain sunset, a spectacular view or a well formed man or woman. But where is the beauty, where is the appreciation of beauty, where is the ability to discern beauty? It is within our own consciousness. For the essence of who and what we are is beauty itself. The essence of beauty is not found in the body, a face or a mountain - they only stir the essence of beauty within our own spirit. And that beauty is not only something we taste within ourselves, but it emerges in our character as virtue, and in our life as care. For what is virtue, but love in action. The next time you say, "Thats beautiful!" know that you speak of yourself, and it is you who are beautiful. Always were, always will be.
~Innerspace
Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all,
that this is perfect, that this is it.
Enlightenment is not an achievement,
it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve,
nowhere to go.
~Osho
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Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
~Dogen
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To be enlightened is simply to be absolutely,
unconditionally intimate with this moment.
No more. No less.
~Scott Morrison
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The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter.
~Morihei Ueshiba quotes from The Art of Peace
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Too often we underestimate
the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word,
a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring,
all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
~Leo Buscaglia
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Our lives are fed by kind words and gracious behavior.
We are nourished by expressions like 'excuse me' and other such simple courtesies...
Rudeness, the absence of the sacrament of consideration,
is but another mark that our time-is-money society is lacking in spirituality,
if not also in its enjoyment of life.
~Ed Hays
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I expect to pass through life but once.
If therefore, there be any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do to any fellow being,
let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it,
as I shall not pass this way again.
~William Penn
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Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
