Quotes & Mantras

So Ham -- I am that

Om Mani Padme Hum -- The jewel in the lotus; compassion, healing, unconditional love and understanding; used to help open, release, and soften when it is easy to contract.

Namaste -- I honor the place in you where the entire universe dwells, I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. And when I am in that place in me, and you are in that place in you, we are one. 

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
--Chinese Proverb

Breath is the key to ultimate emancipation.
--Hatha Yoga Pradipika

If we do not soon remember ourselves to our sensuous surroundings, if we do not reclaim our solidarity with the other sensibilities that inhabit and constitute those surroundings, then the cost of our human communality may be our common extinction.

--David Abrams

It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening.

--Pema Chodron

The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.

--Deepak Chopra

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will

be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. 

--T.S. Eliot

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

--Goethe

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

--Goethe

I have learned that a poet simply does two things: mines everyday experience for the gems, and then cuts the gems to reflect new light. But all of us can do the first part. Even if we never pen a word to paper to accomplish the second part. We can all mine our everyday experience for the gems, and live the poetry of our own lives everyday.

--Stephen Guy

Even after all this time the sun never said "you owe me." Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.

--Hafiz

With the in-breath, I smile. With the out-breath, I release. Breathing in, there is only the present moment. Breathing out, it is a wonderful moment.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.
--Thich Nhat Hanh

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
--Sydney J. Harris

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two breaths.
--Etty Hillesum

My breath, my fuel; my legs, my tool.

--A mantra for running, Anneke Hohl

One foot, one rock. Every step with intention.

--A mantra for crossing Knife Edge on Mount Katahdin, Anneke Hohl

To Love What Is

In this choiceless

never-ending

flow

of life,

there is an infinite array

of choices.

One alone

brings happiness --

to love

what is.

--Dorothy Hunt

Do you think peace requires an end to war?

Or tigers eating only vegetables?

Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself?

Do you think peace will come some other place than here?

Some time other than now?

In some heart other than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment in the Heart-space. Where everything that is is welcome. Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans.

--Dorothy Hunt

All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.

--Kabir

Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you. The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the one who has made it all.

--Kabir

The river that flows in you also flows in me.

--Kabir

What is seen is not the Truth

What is cannot be said

Trust comes not without seeing

Nor understanding without words

The wise comprehends with knowledge

To the ignorant it is but a wonder

Some worship the formless God

Some worship his various forms

In what way He is beyond these attributes

Only the Knower knows

That music cannot be written

How can then be the notes

Say Kabir, awareness alone will overcome illusion.

--Kabir

Wherever you are is the entry point

--Kabir

...But if a mirror ever makes

you sad

you should know

that it does

not know

you.

--Kabir

May everyone here be happy. May everyone here be healthy. May everyone here be prosperous. May no one be the least little bit unhappy at all. My auspicious blessing to you.

--Swami Kripalu

Stability is the first rule of yoga practice. Without stability, all flexibility is just collapse. But when you move from a place of stability, you move from strength. You then have choice and power, whether it be in (the) pose or in your life.

--Judith Lasater

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

--Audre Lorde

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

--Mary Oliver, from "The Summer Day"

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body. 

--Mary Oliver, "We Shake With Joy"

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

--Oriah, from the book The Invitation

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

There is only one journey. Going inside yourself.
--Rainer Maria Rilke

Your way begins at the other side.

Become the sky.

Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

--Rumi

If you don't plow the earth, it's going to get so hard nothing grows in it. 

You just plow the earth of yourself. 

You just get moving. 

And even don't ask exactly what's going to happen. 

You allow yourself to move around, 

and then you will see the benefit.

--Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. 

I will meet you there.

--Rumi

Dance, when you're broken open.

Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance, when you're perfectly free.

--Rumi

Prayer for the Great Family

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—

and to her soil: rich, rare, and sweet

In our minds so be it

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf

And fine root hairs; standing still through wind

And rain, their dance is in the flowing spiral grain

In our minds so be it

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent

Owl at dawn. Breath of our song

Clear spirit breeze

In our minds so be it

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,

Freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;

Self-complete, brave, and aware

In our minds so be it

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;

Holding or releasing; streaming through all

our bodies salty seas

In our minds so be it

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through

Trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where

Bears and snakes sleep—he who wakes us—

In our minds so be it

Gratitude to the Great Sky

Who holds billions of stars—and goes yet beyond that—

beyond all powers, and thoughts

and yet is within us—

Grandfather Space

The Mind is His Wife.

So be it.

--Gary Snyder

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.

--Mother Teresa

May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

--Saint Theresa's Prayer (Saint of the Little Ways--meaning she believed in doing the little things in life well and with great love)

Peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

--Unknown

If you think you're too small to be effective, then you have never been in bed with a mosquito.

--Unknown

Of all the attitudes we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important, and by far the most life-changing.

--Zig Ziglar