It isn’t primarily a practice of thinking of one’s last hour, or of death as a physical phenomenon; it is a seeing of every moment of life against the horizon of death, and a challenge to incorporate that awareness of dying into every moment so as to become more fully alive.

With no bird singing / The mountain is yet more still.

Be still and heal.

Real silence is explosive; it is not the dead state of mind that spiritual seekers think…. This is volcanic in its nature; it’s bubbling all the time—the energy, the life—that is its quality.

Blaming someone else for your suffering is like having an itch on your head and scratching your bottom. Now you have two itches for the price of one.

Where everyday life and the sacred are no longer two, there is Zen.

For these enlightened few, the world is always lit. For the rest of us, such clarity only comes fitfully, in sudden glimpses or slow revelations. Quakers refer to these insights as “openings.” When I first heard the term… I thought of how, on an overcast day, sunlight pours through a break in the clouds. After…

It’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

Full engagement in the movement called democracy requires no less of us than full engagement in the living of our own lives.

There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk “his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor” on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.

Full engagement in the movement called democracy requires no less of us than full engagement in the living of our own lives. We carry the past with us, so we must understand its legacy of deep darkness as well as strong light. We can see the future only in imagination, so we must continue to…

It is not certain that everything is uncertain.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.

Just because you’re offended by something doesn’t mean you’re right.

Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.

To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things…

God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning.

As we live and as we are, Simplicity—with a capital “S”—is difficult to comprehend nowadays. We are no longer truly simple. We no longer live in simple terms or places. Life is a more complex struggle now. It is now valiant to be simple: a courageous thing to even want to be simple. It is…

Snowflakes falling, flake by flake. Each flake falls in its proper place.

To what extent the habit of sitting can impress and change us becomes clear only when we have taken pains to practice it. After a short time we find ourselves asking: How is it possible that such a simple exercise can have such far reaching effects on the body and soul?

It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.

Sweet, cheerful words, coming from a kind heart, are worth more than gold and gems.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see.

Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.

Speak out for what you believe and what you feel. Or don’t. You have to live with yourself.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Concentration means wholeness, unity, equilibrium. All our members and faculties … must work in harmony, in tranquility and balance.

We are made of stardust; why not take a few moments to look up at the family album?

If mind does not discriminate, all things are as they are, as One.

Love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.