When speech comes from a quiet heart, it has the strength of the orchid, and the fragrance of rock.
Stephen MitchellBut self-abasement is just inverted egoism. Anyone who acts with genuine humility will be as far from humiliation as from arrogance.
Stephen MitchellWhat we are tempted to call a disaster is sometimes the first, painful stage of a blessing.
Stephen MitchellThe physical body is acknowledged as dust, the personal drama as delusion. It is as if the world we perceive through our senses, the whole gorgeous and terrible pageant, were the breath-thin surface of a bubble, and everything else, inside and outside, is pure radiance. Both suffering and joy come then like a brief reflection, and death like a pin.
Stephen MitchellWhatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly.
Stephen Mitchell