"Be awake to opportunities to reach out a 'gentle and
tender hand'."
"No, I can't hear myself saying those things either.
But let's keep trying."
"Granted, certain kinds of work fit certain kinds of personalities,
but, for the most part, how you do anything is how you do everything."
"And when you don't want to do something, pretend you
forgot. They never suspect."
"Being thankful, living life with an attitude of gratitude,
is fundamental to happiness and generative to all other virtue."
"Expressing appreciation is as important as embracing
it."
"When you write about something, by the very nature of
the act of writing, you must think about it, sort it out, try to make sense
of it, awaken to its realities."
"The same for writing. If you want to understand
and learn something, begin to write about it. Don't worry about being
published. Simply pick a subject in which you have interest and begin
to write about it, perhaps just in an email to a friend, or a letter to
the editor."
"If you truly see the world in all its wonder and grandeur,
power and might, beauty and immensity, you will change your life."
"Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and are
we standing now, quietly, in the new life?"
"Spend time in your imagination. Let it go wild,
that is, let it go to places that your thinking mind may label as ridiculous,
nonsensical, or impossible."
"Not to feel and express sadness is to keep that energy
captive in your soul, where it eventually turns on you and does damage.
Do you think that all physical sysmptoms always have physical causes?"
"Right now, as you are reading this, make a fist with
one hand, 'Place' inside that fist every attachment that is depleting you,
that is weighing you down, that is a burden to you, that is weakening you,
and that you don't want to carry. Now simply make your fist into
an open hand and let go. Let this simple gesture become for you a
symbol of letting go of those attachments that deplete you."
"We now know for certain what many ancient civilizations
knew instinctively: being intelligent includes being smart with your feelings."
"Problems get solved when there is free discussion, sharing
of differing points of view, mutual respect, and honest doubt. There's
nothing new here. Oh, the frustration!"
"Our inherited prejudices, our old and deep habits, our
lack of exposure to people different from us, our fears, always our fears,
keep us stuck."
"Put together your faith and your intellect. Using one without the other leads to perilous naivete or dangerous aggression. Bring them together can only lead to integration, both personal and public."
Written by David Kundtz
Quiet
Mind: One-Minute Retreats from a Busy World
