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The Tao of Living

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, may have answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

“I know I’m not the one who is habitually optimistic…but just remember this: life is about love, lost feelings and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and about furtive little feelings, and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering. And they help us with remembering, that the only thing that’s left to do is live. After all the loving and the losing…the only thing that’s left to do is live.” – Frank Turner

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living. -Eckhart Tolle

“In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived, How well we have loved, How well we have learned to let go” ~ Jack Kornfield

Image source: Sirensong

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The Tao of Being Alone

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” – Elisabeth Gilbert

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The Tao of the Mind

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein, 1921

“Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” ~ Dan Millman

“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” ~ Lao Tzu