At the beginning of 2011, I bought two of those "page-a-day" calenders. One was a compilation of "jokes you would never tell your mother," the other was full of Zen quotes. After a few months, I stopped ripping off a page each day... I know, I know, that is the whole point. Let's just say, things got crazy what with graduate school and all, so my daily joke and daily inspiration went way down on my to-do list.
Anywho.
Those calenders both sat on my nightstand until a few weeks ago, when I went through a little hypocleaning/organizing phase. I finally decided to dust them off and go through what I had missed out on in 2011.
Some of the jokes were pretty funny, but most were just stupid. However, I found a few gems in the way of the Zen quotes. Here are my favorites:
"For it is sufficient... to live by experience, without subscribing to beliefs."- Sextus Empiricus
"Our eyes were originally right, but went wrong because of teachers."- Zen Proverb
"If the only prayer you say in your entire life is 'Thank you,' that would suffice."- Meister Eckhart
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."- Albert Einstein
"Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive--the risk to be alive and express what we really are."- Don Miguel Ruiz
"My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of church-going."- Aldous Huxley
"A paradox is only the truth standing on its head to attract attention."- G.K. Chesterton
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."- Leonardo Da Vinci
"Make your work your play and your play your work."- Phil Jackson
"In order to swim one takes off all one's clothes--in order to aspire to the truth one must undress in a far more inward sense, divest oneself of all one's inward clothes, of thoughts, conceptions, selfishness, etc., before one is sufficiently naked."- Soren Kierkegaard
"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."- Naguib Mahfouz
"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."- The Buddha
"Our true home is in the present moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment."- Thich Nhat Hanh
"Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high a value on time. In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke."- Hermann Hesse
"Facts are the enemy of truth."- Miguel Cervantes
"Awareness is therapy per se."- Fritz Perls
"Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it."- Sheng-Yen
"We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or a hundred years at the very most. During that time we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. Try to be at peace with yourself and help others share that peace. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life."- The Dalai Lama
"Seize from every moment its unique novelty and do not prepare your joys."- Andre Gide
"The fundamental delusion of human beings is the belief that we exist separately and independently form the rest of the universe."- Reb Anderson
