Interlude: An Internet Retreat "Thought of the Day"

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Anais Nin

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.
Samuel Johnson

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.
Dr. Seuss

Those who have not encountered the differences among people in ways that interrupt their certainties do not make good thinkers; they also make poor citizens of democracies.
Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
William James

Meditation is the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.
Alan Watts

Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is.
Carl G. Jung

To be "viable," livable, or merely practical, life must be lived as a game—and the "must" here expresses a condition, not a commandment. It must be lived in the spirit of play rather than work.
Alan Watts

People only see what they are prepared to see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.
Joseph Chilton Pearce

The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.
Thomas Huxley

Life is a song - sing it. Life is a game - play it. Life is a challenge - meet it. Life is a dream - realize it. Life is a sacrifice - offer it. Life is love - enjoy it.
Sai Baba

If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.
Thomas J. Watson

When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there.
George Harrison

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.
James Barrie

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
Abraham Lincoln

The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.
Pema Chodron

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over the self.
Aristotle

The day, water, sun, moon, night--I do not have to purchase these things with money.
Plautus

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 from The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.
Marcus Aurelius

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.
Oscar Wilde

It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.
George Harrison

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.
H.H. the Dalai Lama

Buddha was once threatened with death by a bandit called Angulimal. “Then be good enough to fulfill my dying wish,” said Buddha. “Cut off the branch of that tree.” One slash of the sword, and it was done! “What now?” asked the bandit. “Put it back again,” said Buddha. The bandit laughed. “You must be crazy to think that anyone can do that.” “On the contrary, it is you who are crazy to think that you are mighty because you can wound and destroy. That is the task of children. The mighty know how to create and heal.”
Anthony DeMello in The Heart of the Enlightened

I have learned by some experience, by many examples, and by the writings of countless others before me, also occupied in the search, that certain environments, certain modes of life, certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.
Ann Morrow Lindbergh

Happiness, then, is the confidence that pain and disappointment can be tolerated, that love will prove stronger than aggression. It is release from the attachment to pleasant feelings, and faith in the capacity of awareness to guide us through the inevitable insults to our own narcissism.
Mark Epstein

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.
Isak Dinesen

Serving the world with love and cooperation, you will find your own true Self. As you help those in need, selfishness will fall away, and without even noticing you will find your own fulfillment.
Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi Devi)

Don't fall into the trap that there is only one special person that you are able to love. Instead, try to develop the expectation that the world is full of people that you can love and that can love you.
Ken Keyes, Jr.

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
George Santayana

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
Cynthia Ozick

In each of us there is a king. Speak to him and he will come forth.
Danish Proverb

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going --
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
Kozan Ichikyo

Heaven is my father and earth is my mother and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in its midst. That which extends throughout the universe, I regard as my body and that which directs the universe, I regard as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions.
Chang Tsai

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
John Muir

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.
Plato

More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that are cluttering the mind.
Eric Butterworth

One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and wisdespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.
Frank Herbert

Let him that would move the world first move himself.
Robert Frost

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
Lord Byron

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
John Keats

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
Oscar Wilde

Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant.
Don Miguel Ruiz

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Luis Borges

…human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but…life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.
John Dewey

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.
Epicurus

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Past Thoughts of the Day from Interlude: An Internet Retreat

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

Those who have not encountered the differences among people in ways that interrupt their certainties do not make good thinkers; they also make poor citizens of democracies.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

Meditation is the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.

Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is.

To be "viable," livable, or merely practical, life must be lived as a game—and the "must" here expresses a condition, not a commandment. It must be lived in the spirit of play rather than work.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.

The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.

Life is a song - sing it. Life is a game - play it. Life is a challenge - meet it. Life is a dream - realize it. Life is a sacrifice - offer it. Life is love - enjoy it.

If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.

When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there.

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over the self.

The day, water, sun, moon, night--I do not have to purchase these things with money.

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.

Happiness, then, is the confidence that pain and disappointment can be tolerated, that love will prove stronger than aggression. It is release from the attachment to pleasant feelings, and faith in the capacity of awareness to guide us through the inevitable insults to our own narcissism.

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.

Serving the world with love and cooperation, you will find your own true Self. As you help those in need, selfishness will fall away, and without even noticing you will find your own fulfillment.

Don't fall into the trap that there is only one special person that you are able to love. Instead, try to develop the expectation that the world is full of people that you can love and that can love you.

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

In each of us there is a king. Speak to him and he will come forth.

Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going -- Two simple happenings That got entangled.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.

More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that are cluttering the mind.

One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and wisdespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant.

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

…human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but…life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.

Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going --
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.