Om

Watts: [url]http://www.goodreads.com/author/quot...8.Alan_W_Watts[/url]

[B][COLOR="#00FFFF"]“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” [/COLOR][/B]

'Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. ...

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”


“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”

[B][COLOR="#006400"]“But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.” [/COLOR][/B]


Henri Nouwen
[COLOR="#DAA520"]Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.[/COLOR]


The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejecction.


[COLOR="#FFD700"][I]One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset; it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs.[/I][/COLOR]


[B][COLOR="#006400"]Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.[/COLOR][/B]


[COLOR="#DAA520"]Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual identity.[/COLOR]


[COLOR="#0000CD"][I]A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.[/I][/COLOR]


The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.




Milarepa
Realization does not arise out of words. Understanding does not come from mere suggestions. I urge all those who work for enlightenment To meditate with perseverance and effort. Endurance and effort overcome the greatest of difficulties. May there be no obstacles for those who seek enlightenment. Milarepa

When one comes to the essence of being, The shining wisdom of reality Illumines all like the cloudless sky. Milarepa



Manifestation of True Mind
It is impossible to win oil by pounding sand. You first need the empowerments and instructions from the oral tradition that was given to me, like winning oil from seeds. This is not belittling what you have done so far.
The ultimate view depends entirely upon one’s own mind. If one searches for a view anywhere else but within one’s own mind, one will not find it. One needs to learn to see the own mind directly, void by nature while lucid and clear. This takes place in every instant and has always been present. Seeking the ultimate view outside the own mind is like a big blind person digging for gold.
Meditation practice is not being concerned about drowsiness or agitation but simply resting in mind’s innate purity. Rejecting or accepting distractions that do arise is just as silly as lighting a butter lamp in the sunshine.
An advanced practitioner does not resort to rules and regulations that he or she does not need anymore but experiences them as useless struggles and concerns. Attempting to be good and to avoid bad is like a bee caught in a web. The more the bee struggles to free itself, the more it becomes tangled in the web and will not find release.
Continuously placing one’s mind within the ultimate view is not ultimate samaya. The ultimate result is nothing other than the manifestation of true mind itself. Seeking ultimate results elsewhere is like a tortoise trying to fly by hopping into the sky.
-- Jetsun Milarepa, translated by Jim Scott.


Entering the Dharma Gate

Though grief in the Ocean of Samsara
Is preached, and its renunciation is urged,
Few people are really convinced
And renounce it with determination.
Though knowing that life will ever turn to death,
Few feel uneasy, or think that it will end.
Though their life is blessed with good prospects,
Few can practice abstention for a day.
Though the Bliss of Liberation is expounded
And Samsara's pains are stressed,
Few can really enter the Dharma Gate.
Though the profound Pith-Instructions
Of the Whispered Lineage are given without stint, few
Without fail can practice them.
Though the teaching of Mahamudra is expounded
And the Pointing-out demonstration is exercised,
Few can really understand the Essence of Mind.
To the hermit's life and the Guru's wish
One can always aspire, but few
Can put them into practice.
The perfect, skillful path of Naropa
May be shown, without concealment,
But those who can really follow it
Are very few. My dear lad,
You should follow in my footsteps
If in this life you want to do
Something that is worthwhile.
-- Jetsun Milarepa


[url]http://www.rinpoche.com/quotes/quotemila.htm[/url]


[url]http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dgen[/url]

Dogen
"Not doing wrong action,
Sincerely doing every kind of good,
naturally clarifies this mind.
This is the Teaching of all the Buddhas."

Just practice good, do good for others, without thinking of making yourself known so that you may gain reward. Really bring benefit to others, gaining nothing for yourself. This is the primary requisite for breaking free of attachments to the Self.

Something you want badly enough can always be gained. No matter how fierce the enemy, how remote the beautiful lady, or how carefully guarded the treasure, there is always a means to the goal for the earnest seeker. The unseen help of the guardian gods of heaven and earth assure fulfillment.
Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that , in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.

Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider as good and pure what does not arouse desire among other people.


Rumi
“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”


“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”



“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

[B][COLOR="#008080"]“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” [/COLOR][/B]



For awhile we lived with people, but we saw no sign in them of the faithfulness we wanted. It's better to hide completely within as water hides in metal, as fire hides in rock



Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.




Emerson


Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.


To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.


You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.



Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.



All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.


[COLOR="#FF8C00"][B]The earth laughs in flowers.[/B][/COLOR]


Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.



[COLOR="#00FFFF"]It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.[/COLOR]



The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.



[COLOR="#00FFFF"]A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.[/COLOR]


. . .

as I got to the fifth alan watts quote i thought to myself, this has become a blog.

The more time you spend in your dream-like state of love,
the more closer you become to your source, and the perfection of life-
bliss, peace, and existence abounding,
ever radiating from the light and source of being, awareness and love.
and the more chance you have of glimpsing something of a state
which someone like Shelley, Feynman, Christ, Dogen Zenji or Mususashi
experienced much, or most all of the time.
every single wisdom-master has evinced the extraordinary benefit of time spent alone,
in search of peace and wisdom...
every single figure from humanity's great past that has been a master, teacher, or someone
worth listening to,
has followed this same idea.
whether Laoze, Alan Watts, Christ, Saint Anthony, Henri Nouwen,
Milarepa, Dogen Zenji, Rumi,
Emerson, Thoreau, Goethe
and countless - literally, illimitable others.
Wisdom, truth, power, all come from oneself, as well as others.
A long journey must be undertaken before one can reach the other side..
The point is, one can never reach the other shore- the transcendental other shore, without this journey.