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Meditations
Meditations
I would like to offer what one of my most special guides in Life calls “pearls” for meditation and growth. I have found that sitting with a phrase or a word for even 5 minutes per day can change how I feel or how I see a situation. I hope that one or more of them brings you peace, joy, insight, light or hope – or maybe some of each. I’ve loosely categorized them into groups and will add to them as they come to me. So please check back often to see what’s new. Enjoy!
Sacred Dying
Look upon death as going home. –Chinese proverb
Be careful, then, and be gentle about death. For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through the door, even when it opens. –D.H. Lawrence
It matters greatly not only that we birth and die, but how we birth and die. –Ronald L. Grimes
Those who are wise in spiritual things grieve neither for the dead nor the living. --Bhagavad Gita
Birth
Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers ~ strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength. --Barbara Katz Rothman
We have a secret in our culture and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong. --Laura Stavoe Harm
Healing
To allow another person to touch me is an act of openness, of acceptance on my part of what that person wishes to communicate or to give me in love. –Godfrey Diekmann “The Laying on of Hands in Healing”
No problem is solved by the same consciousness that created it. –Albert Einstein
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Compassion
Reasoning beings were created for one another’s sake; and patience is a branch of justice. –Marcus Aurelius
All things are possible to him who believes. –Mark 9:17-24
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. --Kent M. Keith
Love
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other. –Carl Jung
Love is simple, but it is not easy. –Carolyn Myss
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. –Kent M. Keith
Love imperfectly. Keep surprise close at hand. Make lots of mistakes. Be willing to live in between right and wrong. --Sark
Pleasure
Joy and pleasure really can be our escorts through painful times if we let them in. We need to realize the necessity of pleasure, not the luxury of it. Our spirits need pleasure, like our bodies need vitamins, oxygen or water. Allow pleasure in to help heal you and others. --Sark
Peace
Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.
If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle, we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with the peace and love for which consciously or unconsciously the whole world is hungering. –Mahatma Gandhi
Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other. Let us plead with ourselves to live in a way which will not deprive other beings of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live…. –Thich Nhat Hanh
Finding Center
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. --Buddha
Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one glory which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing. –St. Teresa of Avila, Maxims for Her Nuns
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. –The Gospel of Thomas, verse 70
When the mind is clear you can see all the way to the heart. --Steven Levine
Right Use of Power
Have benevolence toward all living beings, joy at the sight of the virtuous, compassion and sympathy for the afflicted, and tolerance towards the indolent and ill-behaved. –Tattvarthasutra 7:11 (Jainism)
The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it. –Henry Miller
Wellness
A person will get well when he is tired of being sick. –Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Even the longest journey begins with a single step. Fear not the slow forward movement, fear only remaining still. –Chinese proverb
Respect
You do not have to like everyone, but you do have to show respect to everyone. –Anonymous, from Above All, Be Kind
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. –Joan Didion
Judgment
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. --Kent M. Keith
Honesty and Trustworthiness
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. --Kent M. Keith
The people that you have to lie to, own you. The things you have to lie about, own you. When your children see you owned, they are not your children any more, they are the children of what owns you. If money owns you, they are the children of money. If your need for pretense and illusion owns you, they are the children of pretense and illusion. If your fear of loneliness owns you, they are the children of loneliness. If your fear of the truth owns you, they are the children of fear of the truth. –Michael Ventura
Acceptance
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
Community
A true community does not need a police force. The very presence of a law enforcement system in a community is an indication that something is not working. –Malidoma Some, Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community
Sense of Self
The day you decide to appreciate yourself is the day you decide to dance. --T. Elder Sachs
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then rekindled by an encounter with another human being. -- Albert Schweitzer
True Friendship
Oh the comfort…of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. --Dinah Craik (1826-1887), England
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