not romantic

It is very fine to look back on the lives of the great spiritual teachers, but equally, it is not particularly romantic. They had the same problems and difficulties in searching for the teachings that we have in the century. So there’s always hope for all of us; we don’t particularly have to be born perfect. We could just be ordinary people, perfectly ordinary in the tugged sense; but equally we have a chance to develop spiritual understanding, as well as to attain enlightenment. So therefore, the point of looking back to various great teachers, is not that there is something mysterious, something magical about them, but that they were just ordinary when they began. The point is just to see the way they proceed through the various situations which forced them to develop.

Chögyam Trungpa

holding your heartbreak

if we know how to hold our heartbreak, the heart breaks open into something larger. This tight little fist of a thing called the heart, by being broken open, now has new capacity to hold our own pain and our own joy, and a new capacity to hold the same in the larger world.

Parker Palmer

inspired motivation

inspired motivation comes from something beyond thought, something beyond the conceptualized ideas of "good" and "bad," "desirable" and "undesirable." beyond thought there is a kind of intelligence which is our basic nature, our background, an intuitive primordial intelligence, a feeling of space, a creative open way of dealing with situations. this kind of motivation is not intellectual: it is intuitive, precise.

Chögyam Trungpa

pedagogy of the oppressed

dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human. dehumaniztion is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.

because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. in order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity, become in turn oprressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.

this, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. the oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.

paulo freire

it's up to you

spirituality is all about exploring the subtleties of our lives. it is about finding out what our life is and who we are. it has nothing to do with belonging to a church or following somebody else’s ideas of what we should do, what we should think, and who we should be. the practicing lineage provides you with teachings and tools to open up your own life, to discover your own depth and the meaning of your existence; to make “the lonely journey.” but it is left up to you to develop your own relationship with the practices, and to make the discoveries and find the answers.

reggie ray

right attitude

please remember that the path does not go forward without challenges and obstacles to work through. when things are difficult for us practitioners, it is a sign that we are maturing in our experience of reality. realizing this, let us be inspired to practice with ever more devotion and commitment.

reggie ray

basic uncertainty

in the sitting practice of meditation, there is basic space, basic openness. somehow, strangely, there is also basic uncertainty. if your discipline is completely certain and you know what you are doing, then there is no journey.

Chögyam Trungpa