Favorite Poems and Quotes

A Community of the Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street and being the noise.

Drink all your passion and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes to see with the other eye.

Open your hands, if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf and feel the shepherd’s love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders, don’t accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food. Taste the lover’s mouth in yours. 

You moan, “she left me.” Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying, think who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison, when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking,

Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.

                               –Rumi

 

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his 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. 

Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”

                                – Albert Einstein

 

“It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual.  The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living.  And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation. For a future to be possible, our enlightenment must be collective.”

                                – Thich Nhat Hanh