“You have three aspects of reality that nobody gets to avoid. Pain, uncertainty, and constant work. Those are things you’re just gonna have to live with, no matter what. What will make you happy is the process. You have to learn how to love the process of dealing with those three things.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“When you reach the peak of it all—whatever that may be for you—you will look back and know that every step was worth it. More than anything, you will be overwhelmingly grateful for the pain that led you to begin your journey, because really, it wasn’t trying to hurt you as much as it was trying to show you that something was wrong. That something was the risk of your potential remaining untapped, your life spent with the wrong people, doing the wrong things, and wondering why you never felt quite right. You life is just beginning.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 239)
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. The good life constitutes a direction selected by the total organism, when there is psychological freedom to move in ANY direction.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 93)
“His journey is a pilgrimage; it is a journey into the interior of the self as much as a travelogue, a vision quest that concludes in insight. But there is no conclusion. The journey itself is home. The means is the end, just as it is the beginning. Each step is the first step, each step the last.”
Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXIII)
Narrow Road To The Interior [Book]
Book Overview: A masterful translation of one of the most-loved classics of Japanese literature—part travelogue, part haiku collection, part account of spiritual awakening
Bashō (1644–1694)—a great luminary of Asian literature who elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty—is renowned in the West as the author of Narrow Road to the Interior, a travel diary of linked prose and haiku recounting his journey through the far northern provinces of Japan.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
19 Quotes from Narrow Road To The Interior on Solitude, Travel, and Poetry
“when things get tough, remember that we are not building something small, we are building a palace of peace within our own hearts. it takes determination and effort to complete something of such beauty and magnitude.”
Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 108)
“We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known: we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god: where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”
Joseph Campbell, via Sunbeams (Page 154)
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”
Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey
“The first step… shall be to lose the way.”
Galway Kinnell, via Sunbeams (Page 82)