1. Kickstart Your Change: “Free courses that help you dream big, take action, and change your life.”
2. This quote from Cheri Huber: “Whatever we are experiencing at any moment does not have to be resisted or improved or analyzed. It is possible simply to open oneself to whatever is here.” Amen, (now if only I could do this consistently).
4. This quote from Edward Hays, A Book of Wonders: “Grant me daily the grace of gratitude, to be thankful for all my many gifts, and so be freed from artificial needs, that I might lead a joyful, simple life.”
6. This quote from Howard Thurman: “Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
7. Bow to Whatever it is, a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr shared by Julia on Painted Path.
8. This quote from Anna Quindlen: “The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
9. This contemplation from Ram Deev: Prioritize health. What’s the point of freeing ourselves if we’re forced to experience that freedom caged inside an unhealthy body?
11. Affluenza, a documentary from PBS. An oldie, but a goody.
12. Top Documentary Films. Watch documentaries online for free, (this is where I originally found Affluenza, which I first saw 15 years ago).
13. Sun Jar, a solar powered garden light. I have always wanted one of these, was reminded of them the other day. This company has some other really cool stuff, so take a look around.
16. This quote from La Rochefoucauld, “A man who finds no satisfaction in himself will seek for it in vain elsewhere.” Ain’t that the truth…
17. Get the World’s Simplest Minimalism Formula from Live Collar Free. “A simple ‘program’ for getting rid of a lifetime of collected and gathered belongings,” just what I need.
5. Two from Justine Musk, You Were Born to Be a Badass in which she says “But the first step, as Greene points out, is inward: a turning away from the voices that urge conformity, toward the truth of who you are at core,” and How to Start Creating Your Blog Community, which really has me thinking about what great work we could do together, kind and gentle reader.
12. The Soul-Shaking Practice of Surrender by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Anybody remember a something good list that didn’t have something from Courtney on it?! Yeah, me neither.
16. Wicked Awesome Quotes, a new site from Cigdem Kobu. I pretty much love everything she does, because she’s completely amazing.
17. And yet, the morning comes, the most amazing post from Lisa Bonchek Adams, who recently discovered her breast cancer was back, had metastasized. She ends this post with “I’m still processing. Reeling. But while I’m doing that I’m living.” She is so amazing.
18. This quote from Tulku Thondup:
For healing, it is important to have inspiration. A hopeful and inspired feeling generates enthusiasm, trust, and openness and makes it easier for us to meditate. However, we should not obsess about the meditation experience or have rigid expectations about what should happen. Grasping after results will only become a tourniquet that tightens our mental and physical energies.
19. This quote from Tara Brach, her new book True Refuge:
In the Buddhist teachings, the conscious recognition of our heart’s deepest longing is called wise aspiration. Yours might be for spiritual realization, for loving more fully, for knowing truth, for finding peace. Whatever its flavor, the awareness of what you care about energizes and guides your practice.
20. SoulPancake: Find Peace in the Zen Den. I love the looks on these people’s faces as they step inside, and the woman who says “I’m not finished yet. I can keep going.”
Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: “A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.”
But there is another basic requirement, and I can’t understand now how I forgot it at the time: that is the feeling that you are, in some way, useful. Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive. And it is its own reward, as well, for it is the beginning of happiness, just as self-pity and withdrawal from the battle are the beginning of misery.
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
24. Don’t Wait from Julia on Painted Path. If you have it to spare, send sweet Julia some love and comfort.
Those of us who have the awareness, the sensitivity, the great privilege–all the things necessary to awaken and end suffering in this lifetime–need to take that opportunity very, very seriously. As the Buddha pointed out, we never know when such an opportunity will arise again.
1. Kickstart Your Change: “Free courses that help you dream big, take action, and change your life.”
7. Bow to Whatever it is, a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr shared by Julia on Painted Path.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 