Quotations Search Results
We found 673 matching quotes
The Invisible Sun
A gentle introduction of 7 ½ pages opens this book devoted to Attar — a twelfth- and thirteenth-century Persian (Iranian) herbalist, wisdom teacher, and poet who influenced someone more famous, Jelaluddin Rumi. You may also know Attar from his more famous work titled The Conference of the Birds. The same editor and translator of this one, Sholeh Wolpe, published a new edition of it back in 2017.
Wolpe is Iranian-born herself and brings a real sensitivity to these translations and the transmittal of this Sufi wisdom. Her opening sentences tell us what’s most essential: “The central idea in Sufism is that the soul, in the prison of the body, awaits release. Once freed, it returns to the Source, the Creator. However, you can experience this reunion while still bound in your physical form by looking inward and by purification.”
The rest of the introduction lays out what it means to be on the path, to stray from it, to return to it, and who this person Attar is. Wolpe also speaks personally: “Attar’s wisdom has changed my own life.” Then come the sampled poems.
They are at times anti-clerical:
“Free yourself of all preachers.
Animate your heart with your Creator.”
They are mystical:
“There is an invisible sun
hiding inside us all.
“One day the veil falls away
and that revealed sun shines,
“and in its radiant light
all virtues and corruption vanish.”
And they are consistently ethical:
“Be generous as the bountiful sea.
Be bighearted like the magnanimous sun.
Be modest as the humble earth.”
They will remind you of Rumi in their exuberance and delight in the Beloved and their talk of the restless and distracted heart, but it seems that Attar, who once bounced Rumi on his knee, also wrote often on the tainted soul, sin and repentance, and the danger of waiting too long before getting serious about what matters (see the excerpt accompanying this review).
Rediscovering Rumi’s great teacher.
Ordinary Angels
The religious traditions talk about two kinds of charity. There is secret charity where you give anonymously with no expectation of either recognition or reward. Its spiritual benefit is that it disengages the ego from your act of generosity.
Then there is public charity, where you give and your gift is acknowledged. This is true of those who give and see their names appear on donor lists or in media stories about their acts of good will. The spiritual benefit is that your act of generosity inspires others to join you or find their own way of giving.
Ordinary Angels focuses on Sharon Steves (Hilary Swank), who practices both kinds of charity. A hairdresser in a small town, she is moved by the story of a local family that has experienced a loss -- the death of the mother -- and a challenge – the youngest of two daughters (Emily Mitchell) has the same rare disease as her mother and now is desperately in need of a liver transplant. But Ed (Alan Ritchson), the father, can’t even pay the hospital bills.
Sharon decides to raise money to pay the hospital and to provide ongoing support for the family. She has plenty of ideas on how to do this: offering free haircuts in exchange for donations, going for corporate donors, planting stories in the newspaper. The point is she doesn’t really know this family, and they don’t know her. But one day she shows up at their house, a stranger bringing some “secret charity” when they most need it.
Later, Sharon jumps into gear to get media attention to little Emily’s need for a liver transplant. Since the children’s hospital where a transplant can be done is 700 miles away, she also arranges for a plane to take her there. When a liver becomes available in the middle of a snowstorm, she rallies the entire community to make the plane trip possible. This is public charity at its most far-reaching.
Hilary Swank captures Sharon’s compassion and determination in this true-life story; you can’t help but marvel at what she accomplishes. Alan Ritchson is convincing as the father who is not too proud to accept her help. We all can learn from both of them.
An inspiring true story about a woman who practices two kinds of charity.
Teach Kindness to Kids
"A friend of mine works with a group that tries to provide alternative avenues and models for children who have been in trouble with the law. I am always surprised by the distance between the kids she talks about and the anonymous 'juvenile delinquents' the newspapers are always warning us about. The twisted, amoral, little monsters of the morning paper turn into the scared, wounded, desperate children in my afternoon conversation with Sheila. When I commented on this to her once, she told me that, contrary to what many parents believe, children actually do pretty much what they are taught to do.
"'These kids were just taught,' she explained, 'unfortunately by how they were treated, to see the world as a cruel and brutal fight for survival, and it has taken a terrible toll on their lives. All we try to do is show them by example, by how we act toward them and among ourselves, that it's not true, that there is a world out there of people willing to join hands and help one another.'"
So if you want to teach your children well, be a model of kindness and compassion. Treat them and their friends kindly. Let the example you set be one of understanding and generosity. Invite them to participate with you in finding new ways to inject more kindness into the world.
If our mail is any indication (we've received thousands of letters from kids about random acts of kindness), kids are kindness junkies once they are shown the way. Make an investment in their future by showing them how to help bring about a gentler and more compassionate world.
Motivation to be an example of kindness and compassion.
Voices in the Stones
A Shoshone Elder is quoted at the beginning of Voices in the Stones:
"Do not begrudge the white man
his presence on this land.
Though he doesn't know it yet,
he has come here to learn from us."
Kent Nerburn has spent nearly 40 years nurturing friendships with Native peoples. In reservation homes and coffee shops, driving in the company of elders through Indian land, he has listened and absorbed their teachings. In turn, he has shared their wisdom through his books and blog posts. He has served as project director for two books of Native American oral history — To Walk the Red Road and We Choose to Remember. He has edited three highly acclaimed books on Native American subjects: The Wisdom of the Native Americans, The Wisdom of the Great Chiefs, and The Soul of An Indian.
His three volume masterwork — Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder; The Wolf at Twilight: An Indian Elder's Journey Through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows; and The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo: A Child, an Elder & The Light from an Ancient Sky — are filled with moving insights into Native American spirituality and its respect for the good Earth, silence, deep listening, friendship, reverence for all living plants and animals, the connections of life, generosity, and the differences between the Native way of life and that of the white men who have betrayed them again and again. We have profiled him in the Living Spiritual Teachers Project and created a 40-part e-course on his work, Practicing Spirituality with Kent Nerburn.
Nerburn sums up the essence of the Native way of seeing and living: "It is something about being human, about living humbly on the earth." He salutes their attention to the relationships of nature:
"They do not build, they listen.
They seek harmony, not mastery.
They value connections, not distinctions."
And he notes that Native peoples always teach by stories. So he fills this book with stories about his experiences with his Native teachers, using them to show us the depth and breath of Native American spirituality. Each vignette is introduced by a quotation from a Native elder – Luther Standing Bear, Ohiyesa, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Black Elk, and others.
Nerburn has divided this elegantly written paperback into four sections:
The Native Way of Living with stories and commentaries on honoring the young and the old, taking care to make all people feel needed, and striving to speak kindly and with truth on your lips.
The Native Way of Believing with assessments on the Spirit and all of creation and the art of celebrating the natural world.
The Native Way of Dying with selections and analysis of grief, holding others in your heart, acting responsibly in your family, and making giving the greatest human act.
The Native Way of Knowing with material on being children of the Earth, the necessity of prayer, and viewing nature as a voice to be heard.
In the last chapter, Nerburn writes: "It is to the eternal credit of the Native peoples that they retain even the echoes of these beliefs and practices after five hundred years of concerted efforts to eradicate their way of life and their very presence on this earth."
A very special sketchbook that shines and shimmers with stories, insights, and epiphanies about Native American spirituality.
Rami Shapiro, Minyan
Tzedakah is the practice of generosity. When you practice generosity you open the circle of self and become aware of the larger whole in which the self rests. In time you recognize the interdependence of all beings, giving not out of pity, but out of moral obligation. It is the sense of obligation that maintains tzedakah's connection to justice. When giving tzedakah, know that "it is not really me who is giving, but God; I am simply the vehicle of transfer." When receiving tzedakah, know that God is offering you an opportunity to live so that you may devote your deeds to goodness.
Tzedakah is the practice of generosity
Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart
Compassionate generosity is the foundation of true spiritual life because it is the practice of letting go. An act of generosity opens our body, heart and spirit and brings us closer to freedom. Each act of generosity is a recognition of our interdependence, an expression of our Buddha nature.
No summary provided.
The Nature of Generosity
"The Cockerall Butterfly Center was closer to the bone. Who could dream this up? Maybe someone feeling deprived, tired of closing their eyes. Two thousand quasi-free butterflies, fifty to sixty widely different varieties, were fluttering away their lives within the expansive confines of a cone-shaped three-story glass tower. We walked beside waterfalls in a flowering multitiered jungle, and the butterflies sometimes were attracted to bright colors; they rode on Annick's loose silvery hair like fluttering decorations, and contributed, as unrestrained creatures will, to restoring our shot nerves. Maybe that's civilization's main reason for contact with other forms of life these days; we like to have them around because their presence reminds us of rhythms that might keep us sane. We go to petting zoos in order to touch and witness emergence and interconnection and rebirth; we plug into situations where we can practice dancing the big dance, the old contact sport, with animals. The creatures, alone with us amid infinities, are our only companions. As we watch, life forms are disappearing. It's like watching our invulnerabilities vanish. Of all our myriad duties, preservation has to be central.
"Late that afternoon in Houston, we walked across great lawns to contemplate another actuality, the ensemble of murals Mark Rothko created for the eight–sided de Menil chapel, fields of radiant darkness, from which there came no message but whatever each viewer called up. For me, it was the demands of acceptance. On that bright afternoon, I thought of Glenn Gould in the studio he built in the backlands of Canada, humming along to immaculate Bach and then, in between times, on the telephone to faraway friends; and then of the aged stranger Piet Mondrian, poor and exiled in New York during World War II, surely dying, but out wandering Times Square at night, infatuated with the neon and skyscrapers and with Meade Lux Lewis and Teddy Wilson and Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers — Mondrian, an old man jitterbugging at parties.
"In 1968, the year before he died, he came forward with his final masterpiece, the multirhythmic Broadway Boogie Woogie in red and blue and vivid yellow, which I can only think of as sprung from the a soul at the end of things. Facing death, we can feel about to be cut out and excluded from the feast of being, and angrily eager to defeat loss in an effort to heal ourselves, or else we can enjoy having been included, suffering the fate of being part of everything.
"Mark Rothko and Glenn Gould and Piet Mondrian gave their work as a gift. Harmony and dancing are a form of prayer. There's nothing to do but make peace with the rising flames while the house is burning, a try at joyousness, like Mondrian at some party in New York or Glenn Gould up north, humming and dialing.
"In 'Song of Myself,' Whitman says of animals, 'Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.' Should we envy them and want to be like them? Probably not. Our species cannot comfortably live without intelligently defined purposes. But which?
"The garden we are creating of the world can be denuded and perilous, a location where the poor and disenfranchised scrap in the night, and where the privileged dither in their selfish waltz toward death. Or it can be plentiful and democratic, a peaceful stage where citizens enact a drama centered on serving what we have and one another. The agenda I propose is simple enough. We must relearn the arts of generosity. We cannot, in any long run, survive by bucking against natural forces, and it is our moral duty to defend all life.
"It's time to give something back to the systems of order that have supported us: care and tenderness. As we work on behalf of one another and the world, we begin to experience the solace of reinhabiting our emotional skins. Generosity is the endless project."
A reflection on how we can relearn generosity from nature and the arts.
The Prosperous Heart
Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than 30 years. She is the author of more than 30 books, fiction and nonfiction, including her pathbreaking international bestseller The Artist's Way. In honor of the 20th anniversary of that book, Jeremy P. Tarcher is publishing this new 12-week creativity program by Cameron.
Many artistic and imaginative souls are troubled and often blocked by money worries. They are unsure about the future and afraid to take risks since they have no Plan B to put into action. In response to this grave situation, Cameron speaks to the darkness and the dread in creative people's hearts with an alternative: the prosperous heart which recognizes "a spiritual bottom line, not a fiscal one. Our faith, not our cash flow, is what brings to our lives comfort and ease."
Using a series of practical tools and exercises, including the tried-and -true Morning Pages, Counting (keeping a ledger of money in and money out), Abstinence from debting, Walking, and a twice-daily Time Out, Cameron plows through such topics as knowing your spending type, dealing with financial debt, and determining your attitudes toward money. Quite an ambitious first session!
The book is chock-full of other down-to-earth material such as myths about money, trusting that we live in a benevolent universe and that things will turn out okay, clearing clutter away, finding community, and taking to heart the spiritual virtues and practices of forgiveness, kindness, generosity, and perseverance. Cameron hopes that all who take this course prosper and flourish.
A twelve-week self-improvement course on finding comfort and ease when your heart is in the right place.
The Ways of the Mystic
"A mystic sees beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single whole. You can call this web God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother, or Father, but it can be known only as love," writes Joan Borysenko in this book. In this edifying book, the author of "A Woman's Book of Life" maps the different opportunities for spiritual growth found in every religious tradition. She has come up with seven different routes and some concrete practices for each journey.
The path of the everyday mystic emphasizes gratitude and the spiritual practice of taking care of the earth. The path of creativity and abundance involves a generosity of spirit that is open to new possibilities. The path of service revolves around patient self-giving. The path of the heart is centered around the contemplative arts and devotion. The path of discipline, ethics, and will emphasizes acting with integrity. The path of wisdom grows out of study and mindfulness. The seventh path is one of faith-it puts the accent on paradox and grace. The Ways of the Mystic by Joan Borysenko provides another key to understanding the many spiritual options before us.
Maps the different opportunities for spiritual growth found in every religious tradition.
Invisible Acts of Power
"All of life's lessons can be summarized in one word: power. The goal of human experience is to transform ourselves from beings who long to attain power in the physical world to beings who draw power from within," writes Caroline Myss, bestselling author of Anatomy of the Spirit, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, and Sacred Contracts. She has been studying people's relationship with personal power for two decades and in this sturdy work, she includes many stories of kindness, generosity, and service submitted to her website by fans.
Myss believes that our lives will be enriched once we surrender to divine guidance which comes in the form of our intuition. She goes one step further by affirming, "To this day, the saints and angels are invisible forces in my life. Yet I also have a faith in an even greater power: the energy, or grace, that animates our seemingly impersonal but intimately interconnected universe. We receive infusions of grace on a daily basis, but in the middle of the everyday tasks of making a living and taking care of our family and friends, we can miss its subtle power. Grace holds together the whole of our life — and all of our lives collectively. It watches over us and will come to our aid if we ask."
But honoring grace and following our intuition are not easy in a culture that measures power in terms of money, status, fame, or material possessions. Myss debunks three myths about power: 1. Life is a battle between the "haves" and the "have-nots." There is not enough to go around. 2. When you empower someone else, you give him or her power over you. 3. Material power guarantees success.
The author is convinced that we can all become miracle workers by practicing acts of generosity and compassion. She links these good deeds to the seven levels of power in the body called the chakras and spells out their meaning in gifts of the earth, gifts of financial and creative support, gifts of self-esteem, gifts of the heart, gifts of choice, gifts of wisdom, and gifts of the spirit. Putting others ahead of ourselves is an empowering act that transfers energy to them and gratification to us. Giving does not diminish our energy — it increases it. Generosity and compassion are virtues that work wonders for our minds, bodies, and souls. Also important are acts of prayer and healing through which we connect with others in a meaningful way.
We loved her use of the movie Grand Canyon to illustrate way everyday angels and synchronicities can transform people's lives if they just surrender to them with an open mind and an open heart. Invisible Acts of Power is a timely work on a subject that interests many people: personal power and what we do with our energy.
A timely work on the ways in which we use our energy and the immense benefits that accrue from generosity, kindness, and compassion.