I'm Waiting For The Sweet One

"One day Mullah Nasrudin was sitting in the market in front of a big basket of red hot chili peppers.  With tears streaming down his cheeks, eyes bloodshot, face red, and nose running, he kept eating one after another.  Every now and then he let out a big howl they were so hot! One of his students approached him and asked, 'Mullah! What on earth are you doing? Why do you keep eating them?'

'I'm waiting for the sweet one,' he replied."

~Idries Shaw~

Jane Dobisz

"It occurs to me in this vulnerable state that regardless of the practice, the teachings, or what I attain or don't attain, I can't control this body.  It will get sick, grow old, and die whether I like it or not, whether I am enlightened or not, and, most especially, whether I am ready or not."

Seung Sahn

The Human Route

"Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed — that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.

Then what is the one pure and clear thing?"

Dhammapada

"Hostilities are not stilled
     Through hostility, regardless.
Hostilities are stilled
     Through Non-hostility:
This, an unending Truth."

Dr King

"The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.  Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.  We have guided missiles and misguided men."

Chinul

"Strengthen your will; reprimand yourself; reprove your own laziness.  Know your faults and turn toward what is good.  Reform and repent your bad conduct; train and control your mind.  Cultivate earnestly and the power of contemplation will grow; train continuously and your practice will become increasing pure."

Geri Larkin

"I've discovered a secret about this nowness.  In this place we can clean up our karma, the muck we've created in our lives that needs scrubbing.  When we see clearly we don't need to whine about anyone else, to blame them, or to run away.  We just need to see.  And then start scrubbing."

Yoda

"Size matters not.  Look at me.  Judge me by my size, do you? Hmmmm? Hmmmm.  And well you should not.  For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.  Life creates it, makes it grow.  Its energy surrounds us and binds us.  Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  You must feel the force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.  Even between the land and the ship."