ieshia evans

Courage

is the measure

of our heartfelt participation

with life, with another, with a community,

a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily

to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those

things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending

vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat

our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to

and into the necessities of relationships that often already

exist, with things we find we already care deeply

about: with a person, a future, a possibility

in society, or with an unknown that

begs us on and always has

begged us on.

David Whyte

Depending

on where you look,

what you touch, you are changing

all the time. The carbon inside you, accounting

for about 18 percent of your being, could have existed in any

number of creatures or natural disasters before finding

you. That particular atom residing somewhere

above your left eyebrow? It could well have

been a smooth, riverbed pebble

before deciding to call

you home.

You see,

you are not so soft after

all; you are rock and wave and

the peeling bark of trees, you are ladybirds

and the smell of a garden after the rain.

When you put your best foot forward,

you are taking the north side

of a mountain with

you.

Ella Frances Saunders

Transmission outside doctrine,

no dependencies on words.

Pointing directly at the mind,

thus seeing oneself truly,

attaining buddhahood.

Bodhidharma

🐞

Talking: seven steps, eight falls.

Silent: tripping once, twice.

Zennists everywhere, 

sit, let the mind be.

Shishin-Goshin

No time

to lose worrying about

enlightenment — forget about

ambition, hide your talent in

the coalshed: let your

wisdom speak for

itself.

The power

of the sword lies not in anger

but in its unsheathed beauty: in potential.

The marvel of chi is that internalized, it radiates

in flow like a golden shaft of light

anchoring our spirit with

the universe.

Loy Ching-Yuen