Anna Breytenbach on the Spiritual Teaching of Animals

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“I have found the animals and the natural world at large to have been my greatest spiritual teacher…even in the context of sitting for over 10 years with a Sangha…If what can be regarded as spiritual qualities across any discipline include states of being like presence and awareness and absolute acceptance of what is, then the nonhuman animals have got it…readily available to them…shining…is a present authenticity.

This is about helping us humans remembering our original wiring, how our brains and how the intelligence of our hearts was once in our conscious awareness, deeply wired to the collective of all the beings in our immediate environment.

Every particle of soil under our feet, the spider and her web, the leaf on every tree, the root under the ground or the deer species in the distance. And as we again remember through communication, through connections, we literally again, become members of a great collective…unified in our  shared awareness.

And we experience ourselves less and less as separate from the web of life.“

— Anna Breytenbach

BK Shivani on Creating Your Own Responses

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“They were only the stimulus. The stimulus does not create my response. I am the creator of my response…I have a choice always, and with everyone….Every time my mind (blames and) says “they did it to me” I just need to withdraw, take that one moment of silence and remember “I created it”…Meditation means creating a very beautiful relationship, connecting with the source of unconditional love, our original nature of purity, peace and love.“

— BK Shivani

Stephen Jenkinson on Befriending Death

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“I was exposed enough not just to my personal death but to the endings of fellow humans by the hundreds. And the consequence of that has been that I “long” after life even though I’m so very much alive…one way to be alive as a practice is to remember your death and to befriend it as an adversary and therefore, as an ally, not as an enemy. The presence of the adversary prompts better and deeper understanding in you.“

— Stephen Jenkinson

Sadhguru on the Importance of Silence

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“See if you can articulate the same thing in half the number of words. Suddenly you will become extremely conscious of everything!“

— Sadhguru, The Importance of SILENCE

Dr. Yoko Kawai on Blurring Boundaries

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“The blurring of boundaries, moving self, changing space, are Japanese spatial concepts steeped in the framework of this mind-body-space relationship that explain why Japanese gardens, tea rooms, and temples seem to encourage us to feel contemplative.“

— Dr. Yoko Kawai (paraphrased from this complete talk)

Kamo-No Chomei on Indistinct Depth

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“When looking at autumn mountains through mist, the view may be indistinct, yet have great. depth.“

— Kamo-No Chomei, 12th century

Francis Lucille on Going Back to the Source

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“Thought, when dissolving in understanding, leads to Truth, feeling leads to Love, and sensation leads to Beauty. The sole purpose of any object that evokes such truth, love, or beauty is to dissolve in fulfilling its function of taking us back to the Source.“

— Francis Lucille

Dogen Zenji on Serene Reflection Meditation

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“Just sitting, neither trying to think nor trying not to think, is the important aspect of Serene Reflection Meditation.”

— Dogen Zenji

Dogen Zenji on Beginning

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“When we realize that something is missing, that’s exactly when we begin our spiritual journey.“

— Dogen Zenji

Simon & Garfunkle on the Sound of Silence

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“Hello, darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence…

People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence…

Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you.
The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.“

— Simon & Garfunkle, “The Sound of Silence”