“Optimism is vital precisely because, throughout the course of life, so many things will go wrong. Trivial or catastrophic, setbacks and upsets pepper our existence, but they have to. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t run into problems. We wouldn’t develop without the experience of them. Our lives aren’t measured in a vacuum. We define ourselves—and are defined by others—by how we react to the things that happen to us. Every occurrence, good or bad, presents an opportunity for knowledge and growth. A negative experience doesn’t warrant a negative reaction. We have to surpass our temptation to resent or withdraw from our afflictions if we are to learn from them.”
Bert R. Mandelbaum, MD, via The Win Within (Page 77)
“We are always and everywhere in the presence of reality. Indeed, the human mind is the most complex and subtle expression of reality we have thus far encountered. This should grant profundity to the humble project of noticing what it is like to be you in the present. However numerous your faults, something in you at this moment is pristine—and only you can recognize it.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 206)
Identity is tricky. You need it to have a frame of reference that helps you interact with the world, but too much identity and added labels will push you away from the truth of impermanence. Wisdom will welcome you to its home, but you have to disarm yourself before you enter. Wisdom will find you ready and worthy when you let go of all ideas and views. You can only enter when you are ready to observe yourself without judgment and without a perception that is hampered by the past. Understanding yourself is one thing, but timeless wisdom asks you to take a step further by letting go of everything.
Yung Pueblo
“History is concerned with the past. It is concerned with the dead. It is concerned with that which is no more. The whole concern should be with that which is right now, this very moment. Don’t only forget history, but forget your biography also, and each morning start your day as if it were completely new, as if you have never existed before. That’s what meditation is all about: to start each moment anew, fresh like dew, not knowing anything of the past. When you don’t know anything of the past and you don’t carry anything of it, you don’t project any future. You have nothing to project. When the past disappears, the future also disappears. They are joined together. Then pure present is lift. that is pure eternity.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 298)
