Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 31

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

~ Zora Neale Hurston

Daily Zen - Monday, December 30

The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.

                              ~ John Fowles

Weekend Zen, December 28-29

One of the great things about art is you get to see what your concerns are, what those things tumbling around inside you are.

            ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Daily Zen - Friday, December 27

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

~ Henry David Thoreau

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 26

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. 

~ Socrates

Daily Zen - Wednesday, December 25

It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.

            ~ Mother Teresa

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 24

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. 

~ Kahlil Gibran

Daily Zen - Monday, December 23

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.

         ~ Charles Dickens

Weekend Zen, December 21-22

I don't want something special. 

I want something beautifully plain.

~ Anne Lamott

Daily Zen - Friday, December 20

Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner's manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.

               ~ Anne Lamott

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 19

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

~ Anne Lamott

Daily Zen - Wednesday, December 18

You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

~ Anne Lamott

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 17

The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.

~ Anne Lamott

Daily Zen - Monday, December 16

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.

~ Anne Lamott

Weekend Zen, December 14-15

The reason to moderate is to avoid having to quit.

~ Jim Harrison

Daily Zen - Friday, December 13

Don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 12

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross 

Daily Zen, Wednesday December 11

You can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.

~ Anne Lamott

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 10

A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself.

         ~ Jim Morrison

Daily Zen - Monday, December 9

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

Weekend Zen, December 7-8 (RIP Nelson Mandela)

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

~ Nelson Mandela

Daily Zen - Friday, December 6 (RIP Nelson Mandela)

Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward.

- Nelson Mandela

Daily Zen - Thursday, December 5

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

~ Marcel Proust

Daily Zen - Wednesday, December 4

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things, does the heart find its morning and is refreshed.

           ~ Kahlil Gibran


(Happy Birthday to my wonderful friend, Kyle Sheridan!)

Daily Zen - Tuesday, December 3

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Daily Zen - Monday, December 2

Constantly we are moulding our character and destiny by the thoughts we are thinking.

~ Paramananda 

Weekend Zen, November 30 - December 1

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

~ Ovid

Daily Zen - Friday, November 29

Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. Patience achieves everything.

~ Teresa of Ávila

Thanksgiving Zen, November 28

If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.

~ Meister Eckhart

Daily Zen - Wednesday, November 27

Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
                                        ~ Charles Dickens

Daily Zen - Tuesday, November 26

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Daily Zen - Monday, November 25

I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it's right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude.
                                              ~ Brene Brown

Weekend Zen, November 23-24

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. 

~ Lao Tzu 

Daily Zen - Friday, November 22

With no set idea of how something is supposed to be, it is hard to get stuck on things not happening in the time frame you desired. Instead, you are just being there, open to the possibilities of your life.               

                          ~ Lodro Rinzler

Daily Zen - Thursday, November 21

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

                             

~ Michael J. Fox

Daily Zen - Wednesday, November 20

To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.

     ~ Jack Kornfield

Daily Zen - Tuesday, November 19

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

        ~ Havelock Ellis

Daily Zen - Monday, November 18

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

     ~ Hermann Hesse

Weekend Zen, November 16-17

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.  

          ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Daily Zen - Friday, November 15

What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.

                                   ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

Daily Zen - Thursday, November 14

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

                ~ Claude Monet

Daily Zen - Wednesday, November 13

Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Daily Zen - Tuesday, November 12

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

~ Auguste Rodin

Daily Zen - Monday, November 11

The more you acquire and the harder you work to acquire it, the more you fear losing it. That's the secret in life. If you run after things, nothing will come to you.

~ Sri Swami Satchidananda

Weekend Zen, November 9-10

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

 ~Robert M. Pirsig

Daily Zen - Friday, November 8

After all, tomorrow is another day.

~ Margaret Mitchell

Daily Zen - Thursday, November 7

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

         ~ Joni Mitchell

                                                        Happy Birthday, Joni! 

Daily Zen - Wednesday, November 6

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

~ Steve Jobs

Daily Zen - Tuesday, November 5

To love is to understand and feel that the other person is different.

            ~ Swami Prajnanpad

Daily Zen - Monday, November 4

Whatever our mind constantly dwells upon, that we become.

~ Patanjali