A Few Morning Thoughts.

Reading, done right, is transformative.

Listening well is a spiritual discipline. It connects people deeply.

Our own timelines rarely match the pace of events. A measure of patience can be helpful to synch up the inner and the outer.

No matter what you do, there are some people you can never reach. It's not your fault. Let it go and move on.

If someone slights you or insults you, it's more often about them than it is about you. Healthy souls respect others and show kindness.

The unknown is where the greatest things happen. And yet, most people are afraid to venture there. Curiosity and the boldness of love can alone launch out well and conquer.

Courage is often a small inclination of the heart toward what's right and what needs to be done. It's not flashy or heroic. It's just good.

Most of us have a self awareness deficit that hamstrings our ability to do good in the world. That's why Socrates said, "Know yourself!"

Yes. The world is as it is. However, nevertheless, you are worthy of high thoughts, lofty deeds, and lovingkindness in your own heart.

Don't let the news or gossip or the siren song of social media distract you from your own proper path. Anything that stops you robs us all.

We should be thankful from our first conscious breath each day. There's good to be done, beauty to be seen, and love to be shown.

The Diary of Walid: On Inner Peace

From the Appendix at the end of The Oasis Within, these are excerpts from a diary kept by the thirteen-year-old Egyptian boy, Walid, as he's crossing the desert in 1934 with his uncle Ali. At the end of the day, he writes down things he's learned from what he's heard, seen, and experienced.

An oasis is fun, safe, and relaxing. We can carry an oasis within us wherever we go, an inner place of calm and refreshment, by using our thoughts well.

We all have in our minds something like an emotional telescope. If we look through the end everyone uses, things will seem bigger than they really are. But we can flip it around and look through the other end. That will make things appear smaller and less threatening. So whenever anything looks big and overwhelming, say to yourself, “Flip the telescope!”

Almost anything needs interpretation. That’s where freedom begins.

Whether something is a big deal or not often turns on how we see it. If you think it’s a big deal, it is. But you can change your mind on many things and shrink them down to size.

Wisdom for life is about seeing things properly. It’s about perspective. This gives us power, because it brings peace to our hearts, and then we can think clearly, even in difficult times.

If I live most fully with my heart and mind in the reality of the present moment, I will feel better and be more effective.

Things are not always what they seem. In fact, they often aren’t.

Whenever life brings us a storm, we should use what we have, stay calm, and move quickly to respond well.

An oasis within us is a place of peace and power in our hearts.

We can learn the most from the most difficult things.

We can’t control the day, but only what we make of the day. We should always try to make the best of whatever comes our way.

Animals: Our Mystical Colleagues

In this week’s American Scholar, in a column on books that have influenced people's lives, a weekly piece called “Reading Lessons,” Sy Montgomery, the author of 20 books on animals and nature, discusses a book he once read that was formative for his career. And he quotes and comments:

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals,” Henry Beston wrote in his 1928 classic, The Outermost House. “For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”

This week’s writeup is on a book subtitled “A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.” Montgomery goes on to say:

Beston brought to his observations of the natural world all of his talents—not just his intellect, but his emotion and intuition as well. His book is, to me, a blueprint for how to open your soul to creation, how to see animals in a new, humbling, and revelatory way. 

A lady has helped us manage our home for nearly twenty years. Our dogs know when she leaves her own house across town to come to ours. Our cat has trained us in various ways to do what he wants us to do, and when he wants us to do it. How much do animals understand? What’s their thought and feeling world like? When I ponder this intensely enough, it makes me want to be a vegetarian. We’ve even had a group of wild deer years ago show that they knew when the kids would come home from school each day, and gather behind our house to wait for their daily afternoon treat of dried corn. Who was their timekeeper? Who called the meeting? One day, when we were late, the boldest of the deer, a young one, came across to our back deck, and walked up the steps to peer into the door, presumably to find out what was delaying things.

I’m sure you have your own stories. What is our place in nature, really? How much could we benefit and learn by opening ourselves to new insights? What do we need to learn from our mystical colleagues, the animals?

Maybe you should ask your dog or cat.

An Idea is a Spark

An idea is a spark of possibility. But a spark needs proper tinder in order to give rise to a flame.

I was re-reading The Notebooks of Albert Camus for a bit, and I came across this passage:

For a thought to change the world, it must first change the life of the man who carries it. It must become an example.

I've long had a certain practice. I come across some new idea, or a set of ideas. I get excited about it. I want to pass it on, to write about it, and to speak on it. But first, I have to try it out. I have to use my own life as an experimental laboratory. Will this new idea spark a flame in the right way? Can I make use of it well? If I've tried an idea in my own life and it works as well as I had hoped, then I can tell others.

There are too many people in the world right now writing about, speaking on, and teaching ideas that they haven't really used themselves, because, if they had, they would know that those ideas don't work - or at least not in the way they're portrayed.

An idea is a spark of possibility. Is it a possibility in the actual world? Can it work? Have you tried it out before passing it on?

When you come across a great idea, and your life has ample kindling in it, you'll know by the flame that leaps high that you have something worth sharing. And others will come to your light.