Category: Quote

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

I was sent forth from the power, 
and I have come to those who reflect upon me, 
and I have been found among those who seek after me. 
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, 
and you hearers, hear me. 
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves. 
And do not banish me from your sight. 
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing. 
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard! 
Do not be ignorant of me. 
For I am the first and the last. 

Why, you who hate me, do you love me, 
and hate those who love me? 
You who deny me, confess me, 
and you who confess me, deny me. 
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me, 
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me. 
You who know me, be ignorant of me, 
and those who have not known me, let them know me. 
For I am knowledge and ignorance. 
I am shame and boldness. 
I am shameless; I am ashamed. 
I am strength and I am fear. 
I am war and peace. 
Give heed to me. 
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one. 
Give heed to my poverty and my wealth. 
Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth, 
and you will find me in those that are to come. 
And do not look upon me on the dung-heap 
nor go and leave me cast out, 
and you will find me in the kingdoms. 
And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who 
are disgraced and in the least places, 
nor laugh at me. 
And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence. 
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel. 
Be on your guard! 
Do not hate my obedience 
and do not love my self-control. 
In my weakness, do not forsake me, 
and do not be afraid of my power. 
For why do you despise my fear 
and curse my pride? 
But I am she who exists in all fears 
and strength in trembling. 
I am she who is weak, 
and I am well in a pleasant place. 
I am senseless and I am wise. 

I am the one who has been hated everywhere 
and who has been loved everywhere. 
I am the one whom they call Life, 
and you have called Death. 
I am the one whom they call Law, 
and you have called Lawlessness. 
I am the one whom you have pursued, 
and I am the one whom you have seized. 
I am the one whom you have scattered, 
and you have gathered me together. 
I am the one before whom you have been ashamed, 
and you have been shameless to me. 
I am she who does not keep festival, 
and I am she whose festivals are many. 
I, I am godless, 
and I am the one whose God is great. 
I am the one whom you have reflected upon, 
and you have scorned me. 
I am unlearned, 
and they learn from me. 
I am the one that you have despised, 
and you reflect upon me. 
I am the one whom you have hidden from, 
and you appear to me. 
But whenever you hide yourselves, 
I myself will appear. 
For whenever you appear, 
I myself will hide from you. 

I am the knowledge of my inquiry, 
and the finding of those who seek after me, 
and the command of those who ask of me, 
and the power of the powers in my knowledge 
of the angels, who have been sent at my word, 
and of gods in their seasons by my counsel, 
and of spirits of every man who exists with me, 
and of women who dwell within me. 
I am the one who is honored, and who is praised, 
and who is despised scornfully. 
I am peace, 
and war has come because of me. 
And I am an alien and a citizen. 
I am the substance and the one who has no substance. 
Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me, 
and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me. 
Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me, 
and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me. 
On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me, 
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you. 

For I am the one who alone exists, 
and I have no one who will judge me. 
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins, 
and incontinencies, 
and disgraceful passions, 
and fleeting pleasures, 
which (men) embrace until they become sober 
and go up to their resting place. 
And they will find me there, 
and they will live, 
and they will not die again. 

The Nag Hammadi library  is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.

Thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman. The writings in these codices comprise 52 mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato’s Republic. The buried manuscripts date from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

The Nag Hammadi codices are currently housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.

Quote of the Week

“Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please — this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!

So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary.

Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.)”

~ Robert A Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (1978)

The Master

“The master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his labor and his leisure,
his mind and his body, his work and his play, his education and his recreation.
He hardly knows which.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether his is working or playing.
To himself, he is always doing both.”

~ James A. Michener

Ralph Waldo Emerson – Compensation

From Essays: First Series (1841)

The wings of Time are black and white,
Pied with morning and with night.
Mountain tall and ocean deep
Trembling balance duly keep.
In changing moon, in tidal wave,
Glows the feud of Want and Have.
Gauge of more and less through space
Electric star and pencil plays.
The lonely Earth amid the balls
That hurry through the eternal halls,
A makeweight flying to the void,
Supplemental asteroid,
Or compensatory spark,
Shoots across the neutral Dark.

Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine;
Stanch and strong the tendrils twine:
Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,
None from its stock that vine can reave.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm,
There’s no god dare wrong a worm.
Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,
And power to him who power exerts;
Hast not thy share? On winged feet,
Lo! it rushes thee to meet;
And all that Nature made thy own,
Floating in air or pent in stone,
Will rive the hills and swim the sea,
And, like thy shadow, follow thee.

Quote of the Week

“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Feelings like Clouds

“Whatever arises in our mind—whether it’s a thought, an emotion, a sensation, or a perception—is the arising of coemergent wisdom. It is the radiation of the mind’s emptiness and clarity. Every arising is a temporary arising—one thought comes and goes, then another thought comes and goes.

All our thoughts and emotions just appear and disappear.

This is very important, because we usually grasp at whatever occurs. For instance, when sadness arises, we hold on to this feeling and think, “I am so sad, I am so depressed.” But from the Mahamudra point of view, what has happened?

A feeling has arisen in the mind, like a cloud. Like a cloud, it appears and then it disappears, and that’s all there is to it. This time it is sadness arising, the next time it may be happiness, the next time it may be anger, and later it may be kindness. All sorts of things arise, like wildflowers in a spring meadow. All sorts of flowers grow; all sorts of thoughts and emotions arise. They are all okay; they’re nothing special.

When we understand what our thoughts and feelings are, and we experience them in this way, we are able to let them come and let them go.”

~ Confusion Arises as Wisdom: Gampopa’s Heart Advice on the Path of Mahamudra by Ringu Tulku

Quote of the Week

“Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much…the wheel, New York, wars and so on…while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time…

the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man… for precisely the same reason.”

~ Douglas Adams

Quotes to inspire you toward becoming a good leader

Giftedness, Core Values & Purpose:

“Life is a place of service. Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.” – Leo Tolstoy

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.” – Malcolm Forbes

“Life is good when you live from your roots. Your values are a critical source of energy, enthusiasm, and direction. Work is meaningful and fun when it’s an expression of your true core.” – Shoshana Zuboff

“Try to forget yourself in the service of others. For when we think too much of ourselves and our own interests, we easily become despondent. But when we work for others, our efforts return to bless us.” – Sidney Powell

“When a man realizes his littleness, his greatness can appear.” – H. G. Wells

“A meaningful life will not be found in the next job or the next car. The way you get meaning in your life is to devote your self to helping others and creating something that gives you purpose.” – Morrie Schwartz, in “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.” – Steve Jobs

“When you ask people what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It becomes quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest.” – Peter Senge

“How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” – Trina Pallus

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” – Goethe

Servant & Transformational Leadership:

“It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.” – Sandra Swinney

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win great triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” – Peter Drucker

“In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” – Max DePree

“We are not looking for blind obedience. We are looking for people who, on their own initiative, want to be doing what they are doing because they consider it a worthy objective. I have always believed that the best leader is the best server. And if you’re a servant, by definition, you’re not controlling.” – Herb Kelleher

“It could be argued that all leadership is appreciative leadership. It’s the capacity to see the best in the world around us, in our colleagues, and in the groups we are trying to lead. It’s the capacity to see the most creative and improbable opportunities in the marketplace. It’s the capacity to see with an appreciative eye the true and the good, the better, and the possible.” – David L. Cooperrider

“Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration – of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.” – Lance Secretan

“If you’re the leader, you’ve got to give up your omniscient and omnipotent fantasies – that you know and must do everything. Learn how to abandon your ego to the talents of others.” – Warren Bennis

Emotional Intelligence & Employee Engagement
(Balancing Head & Heart):

“He who has learning without imagination has feet but no wings.” – Stanley Goldstein

“When people are made to feel secure and important and appreciated, it will no longer be necessary for them to whittle down others in order to seem bigger in comparison.” – Virginia Arcastle

“The development of people is an equal partner with the actual results of your organization’s purpose” – Ken Blanchard

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The axe forgets, the tree remembers.” – Anonymous

“My day is better when I give people a bit of my heart rather than a piece of my mind.” – Pam Conley

“A special workplace has many ingredients. The feeling that you are part of a team, a sense of community, the knowledge that what you do has real purpose – all these things help to make work fun. But by far the most important factor is whether people are able to use their individual talents and skills to do something useful, significant, and worthwhile.” – Dennis Bakke

“The greater part of happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances.” – Martha Washington

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

Greed is a form of desire. However, it is an exaggerated form of desire, based on overexpectation. The true antidote of greed is contentment.

For a practicing Buddhist, for a Dharma practitioner, many practices can act as a kind of counterforce to greed: the realization of the value of seeking liberation or freedom from suffering, recognizing the underlying unsatisfactory nature of one’s existence, and so on. These views also help an individual to counteract greed. But in terms of an immediate response to greed, one way is to reflect upon the excesses of greed, what it does to one as an individual, where it leads. Greed leads one to a feeling of frustration, disappointment, a lot of confusion, and a lot of problems.

When it comes to dealing with greed, one thing which is quite characteristic is that although it arises from the desire to obtain something, it is not satisfied by obtaining it. Therefore, it becomes limitless or boundless, and that leads to trouble. The interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction, as I pointed out, even after obtaining the object of one’s desire, one is still not satisfied. On the other hand, if one has a strong sense of contentment, it doesn’t matter whether one obtains the object or not; either way, one is still content.(p.32)

–from Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective by the Dalai Lama, translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, published by Snow Lion Publications

Jesus Teaches about Worry

1) Matthew 6:25-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

Look at the birds in the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was not dressed like one of these.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

—

2) The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

Quote of the Week

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like:
‘If you live each day as if it was your last,
someday you’ll most
certainly be right.’
It made an impression on me, and since
then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every
morning and asked myself:
‘If today were the last day of my
life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’
And whenever the answer has been ‘No’
for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

:: Steve Jobs 1955-2011 ::

Quote of the Week

“Developing a sense of good cheer in the face of adversity, you can specifically use adversity as the support for refuge and true spiritual development. I am discussing how you relate to your suffering, how you relate to your adversity, as it affects you in life and on the path.

Now, as you know, whenever you are suffering by way of the body, speech, and mind, be it physical illness or a mental affliction, this is a very big deal to you. Usually it appears as something major. Even if it’s minor, you make it into some great distress. If you lose a little money or if someone speaks nastily to you, it invokes a strong reaction. This is called “appearances arising as the enemy.” When your habituation to adversity reaches such a point that you actually fall prey to appearances arising as the enemy, it means that you no longer have patience for suffering.

…If you can’t bear the minor aspects of adversity in this, the best rebirth in cyclic existence, the precious human rebirth, what will you do when you’re reborn in the three lower realms? Samsara is so vast, so deep and limitless, and the number of sentient beings within samsara are equal to that. All of them want to be free; all of them desire liberation. You should consider then how unnecessary or pointless it is to think that your small problems in this fortunate life are so great, when in fact they really are not.

Any rebirth in this ocean of cyclic existence will by nature bring this type of discontent or suffering. Since you’ve been in this cycle of rebirths from beginningless time until now and you are still not free, it points out the fact that help is needed. Refuge is necessary. Adversity then becomes the support for training in refuge, which demonstrates that adversity is used to your advantage.”

~ Gyatrul Rinpoche, Meditation, Transformation, and Dream Yoga

Quote of the Week

“But believe you me, it only takes a few years to spend what your fathers and your forefathers have earned.”

~ Dr Lee Siew Choh (1917 – 2002)

Dr. Lee Siew Choh (simplified Chinese: 李绍祖; pinyin: Lǐ Shàozǔ; 1917 – 18 July 2002) was a politician and medical doctor from Singapore. Initially a member of the People’s Action Party (PAP), he became a leader of the breakaway Barisan Sosialis in 1961. After the Barisan Sosialis merged with the Workers’ Party in 1988, Lee stood as a Workers’ Party candidate in the 1988 general election and became Singapore’s first Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP), serving in this role until 1991.

Quote of the Week

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you will miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

~ Viktor Frankl

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

– Jelaluddin Rumi (Sufi poet, 1207-1273)