“Nature Does Not Hurry, Yet, Everything Is Accomplished”
– Lao Tse
“I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis however much beloved, as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it. Indeed I have had no choice but to act in this manner.”
– Charles Darwin
“The healthy social life is found, when in the mirror of each human soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the community the virtue of each one is living.”
– Culture and Horticulture
“Any perception can connect us to reality, properly and fully. What we see doesn’t have to be pretty, particularly; we can appreciate anything that exists. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real, is taking place in everything.”
– Chogyam Trungpa
“We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a ‘movement’ not to bring anything about”
– Masanobu Fukuoka
“The body manifests what the mind harbours,
If the mind harbours but pure, harmonious, compassionate thoughts –
So let us purify our minds”
“You Must Become The Change You Want To See In The World,”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“If our mentality becomes our reality then changing the way we view thought and it’s relationship to the physical world must precede any advancement and enhancement of our own current condition.”
– Kent Healy
“No Written Word, No Spoken Plea
Can Teach Our Children What They Should Be,
Nor All The Books On All The Shelves, It’s What The Teachers Are Themselves”
– TEDTalk
“Apprentice yourself to nature. Not a day will pass without her opening a new and wondrous world of experience to learn from and enjoy.”
– Richard W. Langer
“There is no one so great as the one who does not try to accomplish anything”
– Masanobu Fukuoka
“It’s not how many times your breath wanders, but how many times you bring it back. And it’s not how many retreats you attend, but what you do in between them.”
– Mark Y
it is time to say your goodbye, you should esteem
your host with the utmost respect, in the true
spirit that this very encounter will occur but
once in your lives.”
“Advanced Techniques Are The Basics Mastered”
– Derek Hansen
“The ultimate measure of human beings is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
“Everything is unfolding as it has to unfold. We can’t control what is happening but we can choose how we will respond.”
– Kurt Spellmeyer
“We Cannot Do Great Things On This Earth. We Can Only Do Small Things With Great Love.”
– Mother Teresa
“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead
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A Cup of Tea
Nanin, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nanin served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nanin said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
——————————————
– Intelligent people can solve many different problems. Wise people know which of those problems to solve.
– Ajahn Sona
“The more elaborate the countermeasures, the more complicated the problem becomes”
– Masanobu Fukuoka
“Wisdom teaches me that I am nothing.
Love teachers me that I am everything.
And between the two, my life flows.
– Gil Fronsdal quoting a Tibetan Buddhist Teacher
“Every event that happens has small probability, but it happens. Physics tells us about the universe: it’s big, rare events happen all the time – including life – and that doesn’t’ mean it’s special.”
– Lawrence Krauss
What is Zen Anyway?
A Japanese corpse
serving tea
– Poetry by Natalie Goldberg
“Ultimately, meditation can allow us to have happiness independent of conditions and that is one heck of an awesome claim”
– Shinzen Young
Compassion
Like the Earth’s surface
Is willing and ready to receive all leaves that fall
“I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be”
– Einstein
“Enlightenment is not a process of learning, it is a process of unlearning”
– Dr. Kat Domingo
“Nothing external to me has the power to take away my peace of heart and mind. I may not be in total control of what happens in my life, but I certainly am in charge of how I choose to perceive my experience “
– Jill Bolte Taylor (My Stroke of Insight)
“But let the mind beware that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious!”
– Jack Kerouac (Dharma Bums)
“Knowing yourself goes far deeper than the adoption of a set of ideas or beliefs. Spiritual ideas and beliefs may at best be helpful pointers, but in themselves rarely have the power to dislodge the more firmly established core concepts of who you think you are, which is part of the conditioning of the human mind.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: I shall not fear anyone on Earth…I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. I shall conquer untruth by truth.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds. Shine!”
– Buddha
“Creativity is not thought driven. Seeing something free of thought – THAT is a creative moment!”
– Rodney Smith
Exerting the mind to empty the mind is no way to empty the mind
– Psychology of Zen I
“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside: candles at four o’clock, warm hearth rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without”
– Thomas De Quincey
“As an elixir of sobriety and wakeful tranquility, tea is also a means of spiritual refreshment and the ritual of preparing and partaking of it is an occasion for spiritual conviviality.”
– New Tea Lovers Treasury
“If we offer quiet to whatever arises, then whatever arises will not expand beyond what it is.”
– Rodney Smith
“We can watch our tea, using it as a mirror to reflect the ways in which our every action, in all that we do, is affecting the tea. Any change we make in our daily life will cause ripples across the surface of our tea liquor; and if we just listen carefully, the tea itself will guide us to the balanced place where the times of being an ego and the times of stillness are in harmony. Then we don’t even need to watch or reflect on the ways our lives affect our tea, because at that time our lives will be tea, and tea our lives.”
– Henry Taiki Takahashi
“The artist who aims at perfection in everything, achieves it in nothing”
– Eugene Delacroix
“As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man”
– Ernst Fischer
“What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others”
– French Proverb
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.”
~ Khalil Gibran
TLC
Tea Love and Care 