Thursday's Inspiration

"The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience."
_____ Joseph Campbell

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Keep your heart clear and transparent,
And you will never be bound.
A single disturbed thought
Creates ten thousand distractions."
_____ Ryokan

Tuesday's Inspiration

"When the moon
Of your mind becomes
Clouded over with confusion,
You are searching
Around for the light outside."
_____ Hozoin Gakuzengo Inye

Monday's Message

"True study of the way
Does not rely on
Knowledge and genius
Or cleverness and brilliance.
It is an easy thing."
_____ Dogen

Weekend Inspiration

"The seed of mystery lies in muddy water. How can I perceive this mystery? Water becomes clear through stillness.
How can I become still? By flowing with the stream."
_____ Lao-tzu

Friday's Inspiration

Happy Canada Day to all my fellow canucks.

"Those who have failed to work towards the truth have missed the purpose of living."
_____ Buddha

Thursday's Inspiration

"Through contemplation, we realize that our own power proves inadequate,
and we learn to trust a power that is beyond ourselves."
_____ Jim Wallis

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am."
_____ Voltaire

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Listen closely... the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it."
_____ Jack Kerouac

Monday's Message

"To understand the immeasurable,
The mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still."
_____ J. Krishnamurti

Weekend Inspiration

"The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be."
_____ Bruce Lee

Friday's Inspiration

"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains
is the Zen you bring there."
_____ Robert M. Pirsig

Thursday's Inspiration

"The wholeness and freedom that we seek is our true nature, who we really are. Whenever we start a spiritual practice, read a spiritual book, or contemplate what it means to live well, we have begun the inevitable process of opening to this truth,
the truth of life itself."
_____ Jack Kornfield

Wednesday's Inspiration

"People cling to their worldly possessions and selfish passions so blindly as to sacrifice their own lives to them. They are like a child who tries to eat a little honey smeared on the edge of a knife. The amount is by no means sufficient to appease his appetite, and he runs the risk of wounding his tongue."
_____ Sutra of Forty-two Chapters

Tuesday's Inspiration

"The soul that is attached to anything, however good there may be in it,
will not arrive at the liberty of the divine."
_____ St. John of the Cross

Monday's Message

"The universe is sacred. We cannot improve it. If you try and change it,
You will ruin it. If you try and hold it, you will loose.
____ Lao-tzu

Weekend Inspiration

These are flowers that I received from my 2 children for Father's Day.

"Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart our transmit anxiety. Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom.
Your every act can open hearts and minds."
_____ David Deida

Friday's Inspiration

"Believe nothing because someone else believes it.
But believe only what you yourself judge to be true."
_____ Buddha

Thursday's Inspiration

"Happiness is a quality of mind. It is something we possess within....
If we do not have it within, nothing outside can give it to us."
_____ Paramananda

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Especially in Zen is this true: abstract ideas that do not reflect themselves forcibly and efficiently in practical living are regarded as of no value. Conviction must be gained through experience and not through abstraction."
_____ D. T. Suzuki

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Well-being means to be fully born, to become what one is potentially is; it means to have the full capacity for joy and sadness or, to put it differently, to awake from the half-slumber the average man lives in and to be fully awake."
_____Enrich Fromm

Monday's Message

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
_____ Dalai Lama

Weekend Inspiration

"The mind is never right but when it is at peace with itself."
_____ Seneca

Friday's Inspiration

"Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell,
And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."
_____ William Saroyan

Thursday's Inspiration

"I do not cut up my life into days but my days into lives:
Each day, each hour, an entire life."
_____ Juan Ramon Jimenez

Wednesday's Inspiration

"To the mind that is still,

The whole universe surrenders."

_____ Lao-tzu

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Awareness is not something to be acquired at the end of a process.
We already have what we need."
_____ Francis Lucille

Monday's Message

"As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are.
Otherwise you will miss most of your life."
_____ Buddha

Weekend Inspiration

"Let life happen to you.

Believe me: life is in the right, always."

_____ Rainer Maria Rilke

Friday's Inspiration

"You don't go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul."

_____ Sam Keen

Thursday's Inspiration

"....I have nothing to report, my friends, If you want to find the meaning,
Stop chasing after so many things."
_____ Ryokan

Wednesday's Inspiration

"From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax and be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, and enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on earth."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Tuesday's Inspiration

"People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong.
Why not try and see the positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom."

_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Weekend Inspiration

"This is the real secret of life: to be completely engaged in what you are doing in the here and now.
And instead of calling it work, realize it is play."
_____Alan Watts

Thursday's Inspiration

"God offers to every mind it's choice between truth and repose. Take which please- you can never have both.
Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates."
_____ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Through meditation and giving full attention to one thing at a time,
We can learn to direct attention where we choose."
_____Eknath Easwaran

Tuesday's Inspiration

"To return to the root
Is to find the meaning.
But to pursue appearances
Is to miss the source."
_____ Seng-Ts'an

Monday's Message

"With gentleness,
Overcome anger.
With generosity,
Overcome meanness.
With truth,
Overcome delusion."
_____ The Dhammapada

Weekend Inspiration

"The living self has one purpose only;
to come into its own fullness of being.
_____ D. H. Lawrence

Sorry

Sorry I have not posted for the past week but my hard drive fried and I just got it back today. Inspirations will begin again tomorrow.

Thursday's Inspiration

"Cultivate and nourish yourself to enact maturity and achieve stability. If you accord everywhere with thorough clarity and cut off sharp corners without dependence on doctrines, you can be called a complete person."
_____ Hongzhi Zhengjue

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning...
And there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom."
_____ Bergen Evans

Tuesday's Inspiration

"In the ultimate stillness
Light penetrates the whole realm;
In the still illumination,
There pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the phenomenal world,
Everything is just like a dream.
_____ Han-shan Te-Ch'ing

Monday's Message

"Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed voice, it is not the voice of God. Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear, undivided voice, a voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light, and serenity."
_____ Henri F. Amiel

Weekend Inspiration

"There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which...is within the souls of men,"
_____ Black Elk

Friday's Inspiration

"Here it is-right now.
Start thinking about it and you miss it."
_____ Huang Po

Tatting and Inspiration

I made this doily to match one that a friend bought at an antique store. It measures 12 inches across and is tatted in size 30 DMC Cebelia ecru thread.

"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
_____ Hans Margolius

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."
_____ John Muir

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Knowing others is wisdom,
Knowing yourself is enlightenment."
_____ Lao-tzu

Monday's Message

"Spring passes, and one remembers one's innocence, Summer passes, and one remembers one's exuberance,
Autumn passes, and one remembers one's reverence, Winter passes, and one remembers one's perseverance."
_____ Yoko Ono