We must respond to God's gifts gladly and freely with thanksgiving, happiness and joy:
but in contemplation we thank him less by words than by the serene silence of happy acceptance.
“Be empty and see that I am God.”

- Thomas Merton

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Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache.
You won't be able to find it.
But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.
Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering.
Where are you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering.
Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.

-Ajahn Chah

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Only you know what dwells in your heart when you are alone;
but nothing is worse for a wise person than to have nothing to love.

-Hãvamãl

Life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.

-Kahlil Gibran

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They go out, they go out, full of tears, carrying the seeds of the sowing:
They come back, they come back, full of song, carrying their sheaves.

-Psalm

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On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, let us consecrate our lives to Mary.
Through her guidance, each of us can become the spouse of Jesus crucified.

-Mother Teresa

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Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

- Jesus

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But thou, when thou fastest, annoint thine head, and wash thine face;
that thou not appear unto men to fast, but unto thy Father, which is in secret:
and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

- Matthew VI

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God is always present in the Kingdom of heaven is everywhere,
but first we need to have the eyes and ears to see and hear that truth.

-Miguel Ruiz

The practice of meditation frees one from all affliction.
This is the path of yoga.
Follow it with determination and sustained enthusiasm.
Renouncing wholeheartedly all selfish desires and expectations, use your will to control the senses.
Little by little, the mind will become stilled in the self.

- Bhagavad Gita

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One way to stay present is to pause, look out, and take three deep breaths.
Another way is to simply sit still for a while and listen.
Simply listen to the sounds of the room.
For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance.
Just listen attentively.
The sound isn't good or bad.
It's just sound.

-Pema Chödrön

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To Waken an Old Lady

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind --
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested --
the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty

- William Carlos Williams

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People spend so many nights
running their fingers through their past,
kinking their necks from looking back,
trying to make fleeting moments last and last,
longer than they are written to.
And all that while, the present is happening,
morphing into past,
and they're missing the view.

-Cobie Kendra

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When the ocean surges,
don't let me just hear it.
Let it splash inside my chest.

-Rumi

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