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Sometimes in the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, / We can hear the whisper in the heart / Giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.—Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart
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All those who are unhappy are so because they sought their own happiness; all those who are happy are so because they sought the happiness of others. What is the use of so many words? Just compare the fool solely attached to his own interest and the saint who acts in the interest of others.Shantideva
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All the truly great persons I have ever met are characterized by what I would call “radical humility.” They are deeply convinced that they are drawing from another source; they are instruments. Their genius is not their own; it is borrowed. They understand that we are moons, not suns, except in our ability to pass…
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The heart of Rumi’s teaching lies in the Sufi concept of tawhid (or “oneness”). This is a longing for mystical union with the Beloved, with the divine lover from whom one has been separated. In the opening lines of his most famous work, the Masnavi (his “flute songs”), Rumi portrays the soul as a reed cut from the damp…
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PERMA™ Theory of Well-Being What is human flourishing and what enables it? Dr. Seligman’s PERMA™ theory of well-being is an attempt to answer these fundamental questions. There are five building blocks that enable flourishing – Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (hence PERMA™) – and there are strategies to increase each. There are many different routes to a flourishing life.…
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Author and translator Carmen Acevedo Butcher shares how contemplation disrupts unhelpful stories that run through her mind: One of the things that contemplation does for me is what Meister Eckhart calls Gelassenheit. [2] [It allows me] to let go of my own stories. We all have these stories going through our minds … these different aspects of…
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The hermit is by no means indifferent to the fate of humanity, but they realize with clarity that, in their present condition, not only are they incapable of benefiting others, but they are equally powerless to emancipate themselves from their own suffering. If they choose to live in solitude for a time, it is to…
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In their e-book The Seventh Story, Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins create a tale of the origin of seven stories of how humans—The People—interact and live with one another: One day, a long time ago, one of The People saw another one of The People holding something shiny. “I want it,” said one of The People, so…
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“Courage, after all, is not being unafraid, but doing what needs to be done in spite of fear.” — James Farmer