Maggie's quote for the week of 11/9/08:
"War is not pro-life."
~~bumper sticker~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/2/08:
"The schoolteacher who snickers at her mechanic's grammar probably doesn't realize that her own mechanical ignorance makes the mechanic snicker. The artist who can't do his own taxes may well feel superior to the tax preparer who would prefer a snapshot of his own dog to any of the artists's works. The list goes on and on, around and around, all egos vying for an upper slot."
~~excerpt from Believing in Myself by Earnie Larsen & Carol Hegarty~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/26/08:
"Both [sides] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered..."
~~A. Lincoln, second inaugural address~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/19/08:
"Like water wearing away the stone, we soften the sharp edges so that when we inevitably bump into each other, it doesn't hurt quite so much."
~~Claudia Horwitz~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/12/08:
"It is here, in this limiting of vision, where I discovered the old and terrible lies that keep cycles of war, violence, and suffering alive.... ...It is here, in these places, that I have gained the clarity that it is simply impossible to celebrate life and support war without engaging in intellectual trickery, fooling no one but myself."
~~Claude AnShin, while visiting a Nazi SS training center used by Heinrich Himmler~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 10/5/08:

Excommunication

A small wooden bowl hovers,
inverted, above divested heads,
balanced precariously in the oppressive heat
between hands intended for prayer.
Emptiness tumbles past ancient stains
scrubbed invisible by thin, pale fingers.
Silence roars toward the ground:
"Alms for the people, alms for the poor."
Saffron robes sway rhythmically
beneath the burnished beggar's bowl,
a shispered "Om" escaping monastic lips.
Burma echoes, circling the edge of the bowl,
ricocheting from the past.

Far away, in bejeweled uniforms,
the junta sips from golden chalices
while plucking rubies from silver bowls.
Unruffled, a general yawns and orders lunch.
"Feed the people - fill the bellies of Myanmar."
Khaki-clad chefs march obediently to the streets
serving platters of lead and goblets of blood.
The world shudders, momentarily,
as the bowl crashes to the dust,
shattered.

~~a poem by Randy J. Ekstrom~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 9/28/08:
"The true person is not anyone in particular, but, like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone, everywhere in the world."
~~Eihei Dogen~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/21/08:
"Time sends a melody; love sings it's harmony."
~~George Robertson, singer-songwriter~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/21/08:
"Buddhism is made of non-Buddhist elements, a flower is made of non-flower elements, and President Bush is made of non-Bush elements - that's you and me. If we take care of the non-Bush elements, we take care of Bush."
~~Thich Nhat Hanh~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/7/08:
"If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
~~Harriet Tubman (1820-1913)~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/31/08:
"...let's take a look at what we are currently spending on the war in Iraq: $100 billion a year, or $8 billion a month, which is $275 million a day. So we spend the equivalent of a year of foreign aid to Ethiopia in less than three days in Iraq. What does this say about our priorities?"
~~Bill Cosgriff, Springfield, MA; as quoted in the 9/08 issue of "TIME"~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/24/08:
"Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light."
~~Dorothy Thompson~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/17/08:
"The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation."
~~Jonathan Larson Rent~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/10/08:
"If your path teaches you to act and exert yourself correctly and leads to spiritual realizations such as love, compassion and wisdom then obviously it's worthwhile."
~~Lama Zopa Rinpoche~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/3/08:
"You may be sad. You may be down. But Lilacs still will bloom when springtime comes around."
~~John Bolt, singer/songwriter~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/27/08:
After seeing all the outpouring of care after the SanFransico earthquake, Dorthy Day said,"Why can't we live this way all the time."

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/20/08:
"Unitarian Universalism at it's best is a way of looking at religious questions without requiring that THE answer be found...for everybody, without requiring that YOUR answer be imposed on everybody else. There is a humble acceptance that...I am not...God; I am not the arbiter of these things; the best I can be is a window through which the person that I'm with can get a glimpse of something, and I can only do that by being as completely loving to them as I can be."
~~Kate Braestrup, chaplain to game wardens on search-and-rescue missions in Maine~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/6/08:
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for Temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
~~H.H. Dalai Lama~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/29/08:
"Peace begins with a smile."
~~Mother Teresa~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/22/08:
"Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well."
~~Buddha~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/15/08:
"Your identity is not equivalent to your biography...there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer, and spirituality and love, is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary."
~~John O'Donahue~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/8/08:
"In the celtic tradition there is a beatiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul love. The old Gaelic term for this is "anam cara". Anam is the Gaelic word for soul, and cara is the word for friend. In the early celtic church the person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed, revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam cara, you could share your innermost self, your mind, and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. In everyone's life, there is great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretention. Where you are understood, you are at home."
~~John O'Donahue~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/1/08:
"War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands."
~~H. L. Mencken~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/25/08:
"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
~~Carl Sagan~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/18/08:
"We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it."
~~Abraham Lincoln~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/4/08:
"Either morals are autonomous or they do not exist at all. If a person refrains from murdering his neighbor only out of fear of divine retribution, his behavior is dictated not by moral values, but by caution, fear of the holy policemen, egoism. And if a person does good, only with an eye to salvation, she is not doing good since her behavior is dictated by self interest rather than by duty or by love, and will thus not be saved."
~~Andre Comte-Sponville~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/27/08:
This week's quote is from me; I try not to do this too often, and if anyone minds my opinion, just let me know and I'll try to resist the urge in the future. ;)
I was reading an article about how many chemicals are regularly found in N.American food and beverages (including water). Most people find it completely unacceptable when PCB's, fire-retardants, and other chemicals are found in our water supplies. Then, I read two articles about parasites found in the water of third world countries. One is the Guinea worm and another is the Schistosome worm. Google them...they are HORRIBLE...and there's more like them! I'll take trace chemicals in our water over these types of parasites any day, especially when it's these chemicals that help to keep our standard of living as a first-world country. I'm not saying we shouldn't always try to improve things; I'm just saying that when we create man-made improvements (that save lives), we shouldn't be surprised at some of the residual side effects, and we should remember what the alternatives might be.

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/20/08:
"Music may achieve the highest of all missions: She may be a bond between nations, races, and states, Who are strangers to one another in many ways; She may unite what is disunited, and bring peace to what is hostle."
~~Dr. Max Bendiner~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/13/08:
"All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind."
~~Abraham Lincoln ~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/6/08:
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
~~Mahatma Gandhi~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/30/08:
"...for peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first."
~~Immanuel Kant~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/23/08:
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind."
~~Henry James~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/16/08:
This weeks "quote" is an exerpt from a Wikipedia entry about Roman Catholic Mother Teresa...
"Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites."

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/9/08:
"Then let us no more pass judgement on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbing-block or hindrance in the way of a brother."
~~Bible, Romans 14:13~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/2/08:
"Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform you life."
~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/17/08:
"What is purity of heart? If we compare God to sunlight, we can say that the heart is like a window. Cravings, aversions, fixed judgements, concepts, beliefs - all forms of selfishness or self protection - are, when we cling to them, like dirt on the windowpane. The thicker the dirt, the more opaque the window. When there is no dirt, the window is by its own nature perfectly transparent, and the light can stream through it without hindrance."
~~Stephen Mitchell, from The Gospel According to Jesus; a new translation and guide to his essential teachings for believers and unbelievers~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/24/08:
"To grow in purity of heart is to grow like a tree. The tree doesn't try to wrench its roots out of the earth and plant itself in the sky, nor does it reach its leaves downward into the dirt. It needs both ground and sunlight, and knows the direction of each. Only because it digs into the dark earth with its roots is it able to hold its leaves out to receive the sunlight."
~~Stephen Mitchell, from The Gospel According to Jesus; a new translation and guide to his essential teachings for believers and unbelievers~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/3/08:
"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."
~~Abraham Lincoln~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/27/08:
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves."
~~Carl Jung~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/20/08:
"Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence."
~~Buddha~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/13/08:
"One kind word can turn over heaven and earth."
~~Shunryu Suzuki Roshi~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/6/08:
"No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells within us and His love is perfected in us."
~~Bible, New Testament, John 4:12~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/30/07:
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
~~Benjamin Franklin~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/23/07:
"Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you ... to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old ... Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world ... stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death... Then you can keep Christmas! But you can never keep it alone.
~~Henry van Dyke, "Keeping Christmas" in The Spirit of Christmas~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/16/07:
"One of the most meaningful insights that I have acquired along my life's journey is that it takes the same amount of energy to complain as it does to exclaim - but the results are incredibly different. Learning to exclaim instead of complain has been my most valuable lesson."
~~Meg Lowman, Life in the Treetops, Yale University Press, 1999~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/9/07:
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."
~~Jimmy Carter~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 12/2/07:
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves."
~~Carl Jung~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/24/07:
"May we be free of torture. May there be peace in hearts and minds as our kindness spreads around the world."
~~recent chant of pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar (Burma)~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/18/07:
"When I look inside and see that I am nothing - that is wisdom.
When I look outside and see that I am everything - that is love.
And in between those two my life turns."
~~Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/11/07:
"Once a kid came home…and another kid was picking on her... We said, ‘Well you know what? ...that means you’ve got to show them what a friend looks like, because they may not know what it’s like to be a good friend; they may not have had good friends before, so you get to show them. And [she] said, ‘Oh man, love is so hard.’"
~~Shane Claiborne, from The Simple Way, NY~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 11/4/07:
"Some want to take the easy way: Poisons, bombs! They think we need 'em. Don't they know you can't kill all the unbelievers. There's no shortcut to freedom."
~~Pete Seeger, singing "Rainbow Race"~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/28/07:
"In times of war, you often hear leaders - Christian, Jewish, and Muslim - saying, 'God is on our side.' But that isn't true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans."
~~Greg Mortenson~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/21/07:
This week's "quote" is a link to a personal commentary on a quote from Red Skelton.

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/14/07:
"Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth."
~~Charles A. Dana (1819-1897)~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 10/7/07:
"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.... And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the 'haves' refuse to share with the 'have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
~~General David Sharp, former US Marine Commandant,1966~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/30/07:
"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
~~William James, 1842-1910~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/23/07:
"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."
~~Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/19/07:
"What do they know - all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."
~~Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1978 Nobel Prize Winner~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/9/07:
"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"
~~Eleanor Roosevelt~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 9/2/07:
"No intellect of merit approaches any question from the standpoint of knowing the answers first."
~~Swami Gomuhpuhnanda~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/26/07:
"No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded."
~~Margaret Mead~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/19/07:
"I can not and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
~~Lillian Hellman~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/12/07:
"The most radical thing we do is choose to love each other... ...again and again."
~~Shane Claiborne, from The Simple Way, NY~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 8/4/07:
"The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence. The world needs open hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old or new, that these can be derived."
~~Bertrand Russell, 1957~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/29/07:
"The person who’s in love with their vision of community will destroy community, but the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go."
~~Detrich Bonhoffer~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/22/07:
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
~~Franklin Delano Roosevelt~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/15/07:
"...It’s how the Amish responded to the shooting in their school, and how tragic that was, and yet their instinct was to go and be with the murderer’s family and go to the funeral of the one that killed some of their kids and send resources there... What if the Amish were Homeland Security? What if that were how we responded to terror and violence?"
~~Shane Claiborne, from The Simple Way, NY~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/8/07:
"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."
~~Mark Twain~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 7/1/07:
"Isn’t the war in part about the future of our fuel supply? The 25% boost in SUV sales and the $130 spent at the pump show that we support the war. Setting aside the issue of global warming, how can we think so little about where all this gas is coming from? Are we a country that prizes its creature comforts over the lives of our youths?"
~~Karen O’Shea, Sarasota, FL, in a letter to "TIME" magazine, 6/18/07~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/24/07:
"These are extreme times, and the question isn’t whether or not we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will you be extremists for love or for hatred."
~~Dr. M. L. King Jr.~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/17/07:
"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence."
~~Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 6/10/07:
"We're called to be the good samaritan and lift our neighbor out of the ditch, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to say maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be transformed."
~~M. L. King, Jr.~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 6/3/07:

"I wonder why God allows all this poverty, pain, and hurting in the world?"
"Why don't you ask God that?"
"Well, I guess I'm scared."
"What are you scared of?"
"I guess I'm scared that God will ask me the same question."

~~Shane Clayborne from the Simple Way, Philadelphia, quoting a Philadelphia comic~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 5/27/07:
"No peace among the nations without peace among the religions.
No peace among religions without dialogue between the religions.
No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundation of the religions."
~~Hans Kung~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/20/07:
"All men and women are born, live learn and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
~~Joseph Epstein ~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/13/07:
"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."
~~Thomas Jefferson~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 5/6/07:
"If you see good in people, you radiate a harmonious loving energy which uplifts those are around you. If you can maintain this habit, this energy will turn into a steady flow of love."
~~Annamalai Swami~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/29/07:
"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."
~~Albert Einstein~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/22/07:
"'Love your neighbor as yourself' is one of the main teachings of Jesus, and you cannot fulfill that commandment, no matter how hard you try, if you don't know who you are at the deepest level. Love your neighbor as yourself means your neighbor is yourself, and that recognition of oneness is love."
~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/15/07:
"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love."
~~Anais Nin~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/8/07:
"There is no evil greater than anger, and no virtue greater than Patience."
~~Shanti Deva~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 4/1/07:
"You have heard it was said 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And, if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If osmeone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
~~Matthew 5:38-44~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/25/07:
"...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings."
~~Sogyal Rinpoche~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/18/07:
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves."
~~Carl Jung~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/11/07:
"No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded."
~~Margaret Mead~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 3/5/07:
"In separateness lies the world's great misery;
in compassion lies the world's true strength."
~~Buddha~~

Maggie's quote for the week of 2/25/07:
"Terrorism is the war of the poor and war is the terrorism of the rich."
~~Peter Ustinov~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 2/11/07:

"When I look inside and see that I am nothing - that is wisdom.
When I look outside and see that I am everything - that is love.
And in between those two my life turns."
~~Sri Maharaj Nisargadatta~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 2/4/07:

The Fish and the Turtle
Once upon a time there was a fish. And just because it was a fish, it had lived all its life in the water and knew nothing whatever about anything else but water. And one day as it swam about in the lake where all its days had been spent, it happened to meet a turtle of its acquaintance who had just come back from a little excursion on the land. "Good day, Mr. Turtle!" said the fish. "I have not seen you for a long time. Where have you been?" "Oh", said the turtle, "I have just been for a trip on dry land." "On dry land!" exclaimed the fish. "What do you mean by on dry land? There is no dry land. I had never seen such a thing. Dry land is nothing." "Well," said the turtle good-naturedly. "If you want to think so, of course you may; there is no one who can hinder you. But that's where I've been, all the same." "Oh, come," said the fish. "Try to talk sense. Just tell me now what is this land of yours like? Is it all wet?" "No, it is not wet," said the turtle. "Is it nice and fresh and cool?" asked the fish. "No, it is not nice and fresh and cool," the trutle replied. "Is it clear so that light can come through it?" "No, it is not clear. Light cannot come through it." "Is it soft and yielding, so that I can move my fins about in it and push my nose through it?" "No, it is not soft and yielding. You could not swim in it." "Does it move or flow in streams?" "No, it neither moves nor flows in streams." "Does it ever rise up into waves then, with white foams in them?" asked the fish, impatient at this string of Noes. "No!" replied the turtle, truthfully. "It never rises up into waves that I have seen." "There now," exclaimed the fish triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you that this land of yours was just nothing? I have just asked, and you have answered me that it is neither wet nor cool, not clear nor soft and that it does not flow in streams nor rise up into waves. And if it isn't a single one of these things what else is it but nothing? Don't tell me." "Well, well", said the turtle, "If you are determined to think that dry land is nothing, I suppose you must just go on thinking so. But any one who knows what is water and what is land would say you were just a silly fish, for you think that anything you have never known is nothing just because you have never known it." And with that the turtle turned away and, leaving the fish behind in its little pond of water, set out on another excursion over the dry land that was nothing.

~~The Buddha and His Teachings by Maha thera Narada.~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 1/28/07:

"I have discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color - something which exists before all forms and colors appear.

This is a very important point. No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea.... In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you will have no time for composure. But if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from nothing.... then at that moment you will have perfect composure.

When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say 'inner world' or 'outer world' but actually, There is just one whole world."

~~Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind~~


Maggie's quote for the week of 1/21/07:
"Only when we understand can we care; only when we care shall we help; only if we help will all be saved."
--Jane Goodall--

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/14/07:
"There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war."
--Marianne Moore--

Maggie's quote for the week of 1/7/07:
"A rattlesnake, if cornered, will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is -- a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves."
--E. Stanley Jones--

'03-'04 QUOTES ; '05 QUOTES ; '06 QUOTES