A Prayer

May we be at peace.

May our hearts remain open.

May we know the beauty of our own true nature.

May we be healed.

Rumi: In Your Eyes

In the heavens I see your eyes.
In your eyes , I see heavens.

 

~Rumi

 

♥

 

from Rumi Quotes

The Dalai Lama: This Precious Human Life

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

- H.H. the Dalai Lama

Rumi: Finding the Barriers Within Ourselves

Love Birds - Photo by Henrik Nilsson
 

Your task is not to seek for love,

but merely to seek and find

all the barriers within yourself

that you have built against it.
 

- Rumi

Hafiz: We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners

WE HAVE NOT COME TO TAKE PRISONERS

 

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

 

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

 

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

 

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely 
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

 

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play."

 

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

 

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and 
Light!

 

~ Hafiz ~

 

(The Gift ~ versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

 

 

Web version at www.Panhala.net/Archive/We_Have_Not_Come.html

Albert Einstein & Others on Ignorance, Truth, Courage, and Love

The most violent element in society is ignorance. 

~ Emma Goldman

 

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. 

~ Albert Einstein

 

 During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary. 

~ George Orwell

  

No people can be both ignorant and free. 

~ Thomas Jefferson

 

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, 

but by making the darkness conscious. 

~ Carl Jung

 

The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience 

is the most difficult period of one's life. 

~ The Dalai Lama

 

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, 

but I would give my life for the simplicity 

on the other side of complexity. 

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

 Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all 

the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. 

~ Rumi

 

  

 

Thich Nhat Hahn: The Source of Love is Deep In Us

© Manuel Librodo - http://www.pbase.com/image/70628467
 

“The source of love is deep in us and we can help others 

realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought 

can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.” 

 
― Thich Nhat Hanh

Jack Kornfield: Learning to Love

 

Bamboo Forest, Japan

We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.

 

 The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life’s fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying.”

To bow to the fact of our life's sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.

― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

Thich Nhat Hanh: The Real Message of Love

Black Forest, Germany

“Through my love for you, I want to express my love for 
the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. 

By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. 

If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and 
all species on Earth... This is the real message of love.” 

― Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love

Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World

“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” 

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

***********

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, 

you have chosen the side of the oppressor. 

~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

 In our time, when high technology guided by values such as 

conquest, exploitation, and domination threaten our very survival, 

we need economics driven by an ethos of caring. 

We need a caring revolution. 

~ Riane Eisler

War and peace start in the human heart - and whether that heart 
is open or whether that heart closes has global implications. 
~ Pema Chodron 

I Am a Wild Woman

Art © Helena Nelson Reed

 

I AM A WILD WOMAN

 
I am a wild woman
I know, in spite of myself 
and in spite of what I've been told
that there's beauty in every age
no matter how old

I am a wild woman 
I've learned what it means to be a life bearer
to bear children
to create art
to plant seeds of love

I am a wild woman 
from the depths of the dirt underneath my fingernails
to the height of my very soul
I am one with the Earth
the winds from the four directions whisper through my skin

I am a wild woman
and the spirit of every wild woman coalesces in me
for we are each wild women
and we are all the spirit of the wild woman
I will follow the voice in my heart

I am a wild woman
I sing from my heart
I dance with the stars
I howl at the moon
I love uncontrollably

I am a wild woman
from the deepest, darkest, most sacred part of me
I am fearless
I cry in strength
I open my arms to the sky and welcome the rain

I am a wild woman
I nurture, love and protect
I stand, strongly, silently, sweetly for my brothers
I walk dutifully, prayerfully, joyfully upon the mother
and I will not be stopped

I am a wild woman.
~ Melissa Clary (Bright Star Woman)

 

from Rivers in the Ocean