Via Baha'i Quotes Syndication Service: Be Not a Hypocrite...

Be thou of the people of hell-fire,
but be not a hypocrite.

Be thou an unbeliever,
but be not a plotter.

Make thy home in taverns,
but tread not the path
of the mischief-maker.

Fear thou God,
but not the priest.

Give to the executioner thy head, but not thy heart.

Let thine abode be under the stone,
but seek not the shelter of the cleric.

Thus doth the Holy Reed intone its melodies, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its song, so that He may infuse life eternal into the mortal frames of men, impart to the temples of dust the essence of the Holy Spirit and the heavenly Light, and draw the transient world, through the potency of a single word, unto the Everlasting Kingdom.

Baha'u'llah, From a Tablet - translated from the Persian
Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol II, #2050. p. 337

 

People who are very enamored with their intellect don’t trust the inner space. They don’t know how to tune to it. They just haven’t noticed its existence, because they were so busy thinking about everything. There’s very little you can say to somebody who’s going through that, because it isn’t real to them. It doesn’t exist.

You can remind them of moments they’ve been out of their mind, because once you have acknowledged the existence of that other plane of reality, in which you know that wisdom exists, then immediately all the moments when you had it in life that you treated as irrelevant or as error, or as, “I was out of my mind,” suddenly become real to you, and you start to trust that dimension more.

Via Daily Dharma / What Really Matters

We can’t live ethically without caring about ourselves as well as others.

—Winton Higgins, "Treading the Path with Care"

Via Daily Dharma / What Really Matters

If we're not reflecting on the impermanent nature of life, then there are a lot of unimportant things that seem important. Our jobs seem important. Money seems important. But if we're really reflecting on impermanence then we can see that the important things are compassion and loving others—giving to others and taking care of others.

—Allison Choying Zangmo, "Living and Dying with Confidence"

Via Daily Dharma / What Is the Self?

A human being is a storytelling machine. The self is a story.

—Paul Brooks, "The Space Between"

Via Ram Dass

As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness.

Via Daily Dharma / Asking Questions

Because people try to conquer others instead of gaining victory over themselves, there are problems. The Buddha taught that one should simply gain victory over oneself.

—Sayadaw U Pandita, "The Best Remedy"

Via Daily Dharma / Thou Shalt Not Covet

Not coveting a single thing is the greatest gift you can give to the universe.

—Kodo Sawaki Roshi, "To You"

Via Daily Dharma / Discovering the Mind

We do not need to be afraid of our mind. We can go on a journey of discovery and experiment. Then we are able to play with our mental processes and develop our mental ability in wisdom and compassion.

—Martine Batchelor, "Life’s Meditation, Mental Habits, and Creative Imagination"

Via Daily Dharma: A Daily Discovery

Revisiting [meditation] on a regular basis provides each of us with a unique and intimate rhythm of discovery.

—Lauren Krauze, "A Watchfulness Routine for Writing"

Via Ram Dass

You get to be at home with change. You get to be at home with uncertainty. You get to be at home with not knowing how it all comes out. and you make a plan knowing full well that it may be totally irrelevant a moment later, and you’re at peace with that.

I find that when I’m at a choice point, the best thing to do is to quiet and empty and go back to square one. But I try to stay at the choice point as long as I can, because that’s as interesting a place as any other place, to stay with not knowing what to do. But if you listen, it all becomes apparent in time. Patience is good. The tolerance for not knowing what’s what is quite an art form.

Via Daily Dharma / The Sustenance of Life:

We humans have a way of touching each other’s lives deeply even despite ourselves. In finding our way to each other, we find what is, after all, already there, waiting to be found, wanting to be found.

—Andrew Cooper, "Life’s Hidden Support"

Via Daily Dharma / Heart Workout

We have to work diligently to keep our hearts open, just as we have to work to keep other muscles in the body strong.

—Valerie Mason-John, "Brief Teachings"

Via Daily Dharma / Social Responsibility

When I begin taking care of how I suffer—how I too am greedy, angry, or confused—then I develop my capacity to respond to those same energies in individuals and institutions alike.

—Michael Stone, "G-20 Dharma"

 

In the early stages of sadhana (spiritual work), you take your dominant thing and you work with it. You keep doing it and doing it, and you love it, and it gets thicker and thicker. But later on in your sadhana, for me anyway, I began to taste freedom and yearn for it so much that I looked and I shifted around.

There’s a point where you go towards the fire of purification, towards the places you’re stuck. You can feel where your stuff is – what’s got your number, and you realize that as long as there’s any aversion left in you, you’re stuck and you end up wanting to eat your aversions.

Via Daily Dharma / Everything Is Useful

 Whatever the circumstance, bodily movement or stillness, feeling well or distressed, with good concentration or scattered attention, everything can be brought back to awareness.

—Kittisaro, "Tangled in Thought"

Via Daily Dharma / Finding Stability in Impermanence

Change is good, we’re told. A fresh breeze blown through life keeps us on our toes, fully alive until we die.

—Joan Duncan Oliver, "Love, Loss and the Grocery Store"

Via Daily Dharma / Moments Make a Life

Our entire lives are nothing but a chain of moments in which we perceive one sight, taste, smell, touch, sound, feeling, or thought after another. Outside of this process, nothing else happens.

—Cynthia Thatcher, "What’s So Great About Now?"

In the clarity of a quiet mind, there is room for all that is actually happening and whatever else might also be possible.

As we've discovered, it is possible to notice a single thought, sensation, or situation arise, but not get totally lost in identifying with it. We observe the cloud but remain focused on the sky, see the leaf but hold in vision the river. We are that which is aware of the totality. And our skills develop with practice.

First, we have to appreciate the value of such qualities of mind and desire to develop them. Next, we have to have faith in the possibility that we can indeed make progress. Finally, we have to explore and practice appropriate techniques.

Twenty minutes per day of such practice can lead to results and the incentive to go deeper still. Continuous practice brings about great transformation of mind and leads to a new quality of service.