Great Quotes!

A little food for thought!

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination.  Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.  ~Anaïs Nin

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"

- Sydney J. Harris

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

- Vincent van Gogh

 

Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be. Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make our time and our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.

- Tom Head

Live every act fully, as if it were your last.

- Buddha

Without some goal and some effort to reach it, no one can live.

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form.

- Buddha

Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.

- William James 

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.

- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama 

 The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

- Carlos Castaneda

These are some great quotes that I have saved and hope they bless you as they have me!! 

What's the Point!?

Good-day & I hope that all is well with you!

   In going through the exercise from my last post and reflecting on all that we try to accomplish in this endeavor, I am confronted with a stark reality. Questions arise and the path seems bleak at times, as I am sure you've found during your time. The reality is that even with all we learn, we may be in a fruitless pursuit of perfection that never will come. I then realized, it doesn't matter! The trying is the important thing and that we are the better for the doing. In training martial arts we are brought before this very altar. We struggle towards a goal that will forever elude us. When I was younger this brought no end to the feelings of despair but through the training I have come to realize that this is the point. Training, struggling, sweating, meditating, and learning to enjoy that process. Realize that you are already stronger just for the effort put forth in the retraining of your Mind! When feelings of despair, depression and hopelessness arise realize that these are the old ways being purged and the new thought-habits taking their place. Have joy in the midst of this (un-reasonable happiness, yes!) and put forth a renewed effort. Practice the exercise of getting Center that we went over a few posts ago until you feel your strength pour forth again. Extend your Mind and energy to the goal you have before you and don't let go!
   
To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach.  ~Havelock Ellis