Two dragons chasing a flaming pearl

Two dragons chasing a flaming pearl
 
Reality is so subtle that the ancient immortals called this reality a tiny pearl. In reality it has no such shape; they call it thus because there is a point of conscious energy hidden in the center, and because that point of awareness contains the whole cosmos, space, and the universe.
-- Liu Yiming

 




Link: http://thesecretofthegoldenflower.com/

Wise Canary 's friend the Brilliant Budgie

 

"The starting point of all achievement is desire. "

Did you hear that noise?

 

BE MINDFUL NOW

LOST

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.




An old Native American elder story rendered into modern English by David Wagoner, in The Heart Aroused - Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America by David Whyte, Currency Doubleday, New York, 1996.

AWAKEN TO THIS DAY

SANSKRIT PROVERB

Look at this day, for it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all the realities and verities of existence, the bliss of growth, the splendor of action, the glory of power.

For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today, well lived, makes every day a dream, a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day

*PICTURE: Detail of an illustration prepared for the print version of this story.

(Neal Cresswell/Neal Cresswell for The Globe and Mail)

LINK:  http://www.ask.com/web?l=dis&o=10150&qsrc=2869&q=globe%20and%20mail%20birthday%20neal%20cresswell

May All Beings Be Healthy, Happy And Living In The Present

Extreme Ascetic PRACTICES EXAMINED IN BBC DOCUMENTARY

 

A lotus's meaning (buzzle.com)

(BBC Four) Anglican priest Pete Owen-Jones hosts the BBC’s “Extreme Pilgrim” program. Owen-Jones is the vicar of a parish in Sussex, England.

This three-part documentary follows him on a search for meaning through extreme ascetic practices of several religions, including Zen Buddhism (Japanese), Kung Fu (an offshoot of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism), Hinduism, and Christianity. 


Although the Buddha realized that self-mortification was not the path to freedom and happiness,these practices have never fallen out of favor.


Practitioners have yet to realize what finally dawned on the seeker Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree. 

The path to liberation, the path of purification, is more heart-centered and mental than physical. 

The body is not to blame for the sources of hidden motivation behind our actions (karma). The resolution is going inward rather than obsessing on punishing/tormenting the outward. 

The body may be brought into complete submission, yet a defiled heart/mind will soon move one again to the edge of ruin.
 
Conversely, while standing in the muck, one may rise above the din by attending to the defilement that springs within. 

Like a lotus shooting skyward toward the light while still rooted in fertilizer-mud and murky water, having found the actual source of our ills, one transcends suffering. 



Stop. Soften. Be still. Touch the bliss -- remembering that "there is no 'path to happiness'; happiness IS the path!" 

 Develop liberating-insight based on this tranquility. Awaken.

Source: Extreme Ascetic Practices Today (BBC video)

Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Cobwebs From An Empty Skull


 

VIDEO LINK:

http://blip.tv/stmarkla/extreme-pilgrim-ascetic-christianity-1771145

Monks Mediatation Study

  Brain Scans
 





 

 A brain scan of a monk actively extending compassion shows activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with reward processing. Photo: SPAN Lab, Stanford University / SF

Stanford studies monks' meditation, compassion

Meredith May

Updated 12:02 p.m., Sunday, July 8, 2012

Stanford neuroeconomist Brian Knutson is an expert in the pleasure center of the brain that works in tandem with our financial decisions - the biology behind why we bypass the kitchen coffeemaker to buy the $4 Starbucks coffee every day.

He can hook you up to a brain scanner, take you on a simulated shopping spree and tell by looking at your nucleus accumbens - an area deep inside your brain associated with fight, flight, eating and fornicating - how you process risk and reward, whether you're a spendthrift or a tightwad.

So when his colleagues saw him putting Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns into the MRI machine in the basement of the Stanford psychology building, he drew a few double-takes.

Knutson is still interested in the nucleus accumbens, which receives a dopamine hit when a person anticipates something pleasant, like winning at blackjack.

Only now he wants to know if the same area of the brain can light up for altruistic reasons. 

Can extending compassion to another person look the same in the brain as anticipating something good for oneself? 

And who better to test than Tibetan monks, who have spent their lives pursuing a state of selfless nonattachment?

Meditation science

The "monk study" at Stanford is part of an emerging field of meditation science that has taken off in the last decade with advancements in brain image technology, and popular interest.

"There are many neuroscientists out there looking at mindfulness, but not a lot who are studying compassion," Knutson said. "The Buddhist view of the world can provide some potentially interesting information about the subcortical reward circuits involved in motivation."

By looking at expert meditators, neuroscientists hope to get a better picture of what compassion looks like in the brain. 

1. Does a monk's brain behave differently than another person's brain when the two are both extending compassion?

2. Is selflessness innate, or can it be learned?


Possible Therapeutic Uses?

Looking to the future, neuroscientists wonder whether compassion can be neurologically isolated, if one day it could be harnessed to help people overcome depression, to settle children with hyperactivity, or even to rewire a psychopath.

"Right now we're trying to first develop the measurement of compassion, so then one day we can develop the science around it," Knutson said.

Stress reduction

Thirty years ago, medical Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn used meditation as the basis for his revolutionary "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program." 

He put people with chronic pain and depression through a six-week meditation practice in the basement of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and became one of the first practitioners to record meditation-related health improvements in patients with intractable pain. His stress-reduction techniques are now used in hospitals, clinics and by HMOs.

"In the last 25 years there's been a tidal shift in the field, and
now there are 300 scientific papers on mindfulness," said Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director for the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

People who meditate show more left-brain hemisphere dominance, according to meditation studies done at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Essentially when you spend a lot of time meditating, the brain shows a pattern of feeling safe in the world and more comfortable in approaching people and situations, and less vigilant and afraid, which is more associated with the right hemisphere," she said.

Effect on aging

The most comprehensive scientific study of meditation, the Shamatha Project led by scientists at UC Davis, indicates meditation leads to improved perception and may even have some effect on cellular aging.

Volunteers who spent an average of 500 hours in focused-attention meditation during a three-month retreat in 2007 were better than the control group at detecting slight differences in the length of lines flashed on a screen.

When researchers compared blood samples between the two groups, they found the retreat population had 30 percent more telomerase - the enzyme in cells that repairs the shortening of chromosomes that occurs throughout life. 

This could have implications for the tiny protective caps on the ends of DNA known as telomeres, which have been linked to longevity.

"This does not mean that if you meditate, you're going to live longer," said Clifford Saron, a research neuroscientist leading the study at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain.

"It's an empirical question at this point, but it's remarkable that a sense of purpose in life, a belief that your goals and values are coming more into alignment with your past and projected future is likely affecting something at the level of your molecular biology," Saron said.

Knutson's monk study at Stanford is in its early stages. He has some data collected from Stanford undergrads to use as part of the control group, but he still needs more novice meditators and monks to go into the MRI machine. It's an expensive proposition. Subjects are in the machine for eight to 12 hours a day, for three days, at $500 an hour.

Knutson's study is funded by Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, which was started with a sizable donation of seed money from the Dalai Lama after his 2005 campus visit to discuss fostering scientific study of human emotion.

Knutson and his team asked the monks and nuns to lie down in the MRI scanner and look at a series of human faces projected above their eyes. He asked them to withhold emotion and look at some of the faces neutrally, and for others, to look and show compassion by feeling their suffering.

Next he flashed a series of abstract paintings and asked his subjects to rate how much they liked the art. What the monks and nuns didn't know was that Knutson was also flashing subliminal photos of the same faces before the pictures of the art.

"Reliably they like the art more if the faces they showed compassion to came before it," Knutson said, "Which leads to a hypothesis that there is some sort of compassion carryover happening."

Extending compassion

Next Knutson asked the Buddhists to practice a style of meditation called "tonglen," in which the person extends compassion outward from their inner circle, first to their parent, then to a good friend, then to a stranger and last to all sentient beings. 


He wants to see whether brain activity changes depending on different types of compassion.

"There's a concern that scientists might be 'trying to prove meditation,' but we are scientists trying to understand the brain," said Matthew Sacchet, a neuroscience doctoral student at Stanford working with Knutson.

"The research has important possibilities for medicine, and also it could get rid of some of the fuzz and help make meditation more empirically grounded," he said.

"If there is some kind of underlying structure to be understood scientifically, it could make things more clear for everyone.

Meredith May is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mmay@sfchronicle.com

Stanford studies monks' meditation, compassion - SFGate

 Link:  http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Stanford-studies-monks-meditation-compassion-3689748.php

EXTREME ASCETIC PRACTICES ON THE BBC

 

Meditate Daily - It's good for you and it's free!

*Meditation is an always-available gift of replenishment that we can give to ourselves anytime during our harried work schedule.




Researchers are exploring the benefits of meditation on everything from heart disease to obesity. Sumathi Reddy and Dr. Aditi Nerurkar join Lunch Break.


Doctor's Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day


At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, doctor's orders can include an unlikely prescription: meditation.

"I recommend five minutes, twice a day, and then gradually increase," said Aditi Nerurkar, a primary-care doctor and assistant medical director of the Cheng & Tsui Center for Integrative Care, which offers alternative medical treatment at the Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospital. "It's basically the same way I prescribe medicine. I don't start you on a high dose right away." She recommends that patients eventually work up to about 20 minutes of meditating, twice a day, for conditions including insomnia and irritable bowel syndrome.

Integrative medicine programs including meditation are increasingly showing up at hospitals and clinics across the country. Recent research has found that meditation can lower blood pressure and help patients with chronic illness cope with pain and depression.  

In a study published last year, meditation sharply reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke among a group of African-Americans with heart disease.

At Beth Israel Deaconess, meditation and other mind-body therapies are slowly being worked into the primary-care setting. The program began offering some services over the past six months and hopes eventually to have group meditation classes, said Dr. Nerurkar.

Health experts say meditation shouldn't be used to replace traditional medical therapies, but rather to complement them. While it is clear that "when you breathe in a very slow, conscious way it temporarily lowers your blood pressure," such techniques shouldn't be used to substitute for medications to manage high blood pressure and other serious conditions, said Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. In general, she said, meditation can be useful for symptom management, not to cure or treat disease.
Dr. Briggs said the agency is funding a number of studies looking at meditation and breathing techniques and their effect on numerous conditions, including hot flashes that occur during menopause. If meditation is found to be beneficial, it could help women avoid using hormone treatments, which can have detrimental side effects, she said.
 

The most common type of meditation recommended by doctors and used in hospital programs is called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which was devised at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  
Dr. Nerurkar said she doesn't send patients to a class for training. Instead, she and other physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess will demonstrate the technique in the office. "Really it's just sitting in a quiet posture that's comfortable, closing your eyes and watching your breath," she said.
Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., says it isn't clearly understood how meditation works on the body. 

Some forms of meditation have been found to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which stimulates the body's relaxation response, improves blood supply, slows down heart rate and breathing and increases digestive activity, he said. It also slows down the release of stress hormones, such as cortisol.

Dr. Doraiswamy says he recommends meditation for people with depression, panic or anxiety disorders, ongoing stress, or for general health maintenance of brain alertness and cardiovascular health.
Thousands of studies have been published that look at meditation, Dr. Doraiswamy said. Of these, about 500 have been clinical trials testing meditation for various ailments, but only about 40 trials have been long-term studies. 

It isn't known whether there is an optimal amount of time for meditating that is most effective. And, it hasn't been conclusively shown that the practice causes people to live longer or prevents them from getting certain chronic diseases.

Some short-term studies have found meditation can improve cognitive abilities such as attention and memory, said Dr. Doraiswamy. 

Using imaging, scientists have shown that meditation can improve the functional performance of specific circuits in the brain and may reduce age-related shrinkage of several brain centers, particularly those that may be vulnerable in disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
 

Recent research found that meditation can result in molecular changes affecting the length of telomeres, a protective covering at the end of chromosomes that gets shorter as people age. 

The study involved 40 family caregivers of dementia patients. Half of the participants meditated briefly on a daily basis and the other half listened to relaxing music for 12 minutes a day. 

The eight-week study found that people who meditated showed a 43% improvement in telomerase activity, an enzyme that regulates telomere length, compared with a 3.7% gain in the group listening to music. 

The participants meditating also showed improved mental and cognitive functioning and lower levels of depression compared with the control group. The pilot study was published in January in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Government-funded research also is exploring meditation's effect on dieting and depression.





Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared April 16, 2013, on page D1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Doctor's Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day.



More About the Mind and Body
Rewiring the Brain to Ease Pain 11/15/2011
Anxiety Can Bring Out the Best 6/18/2012





Source: /article/SB10001424127887324345804578424863782143682.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle

Quotes: Confucius

Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
- Confucius


The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. 
Confucius


It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius


Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself! 
Confucius


It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. 
Confucius


Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
Confucius


Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. 
Confucius


Ability will never catch up with the demand for it. 
Confucius
 

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. 
Confucius
 
 I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being. 
Confucius 


Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius


An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.
Confucius


The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action. 
Confucius


Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
Confucius


If we don’t know life, how can we know death?
Confucius


To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. 
Confucius
 
To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short. 
Confucius


 The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. 
Confucius


He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.
 Confucius


The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
Confucius


We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.
Confucius


When anger rises, think of the consequences. 
Confucius

 
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. 
Confucius


The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later.
Confucius


They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
Confucius


Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?
Confucius


And remember, no matter where you go, there you are. 
Confucius


To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.
Confucius


Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.
Confucius


When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
Confucius
 

 No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
Confucius


 Go before the people with your example, and be laborious in their affairs.
Confucius


Heaven means to be one with God. 
Confucius
   

Prayer Walls

Prayer walls are made of many stones of shapes and sizes engraved with Buddhist prayers.   

Some prayer walls extend for more than a hundred yards and added to the walls are Buddhist Prayer Flags.  

In respect to Buddhist ritual, these walls are passed on the left.

Seven Valleys

From Seven Valleys – Haft-Vádí (1860)

"In the ocean he findeth a drop, in a drop he beholdeth the secrets of the sea."

"Split the atom’s heart, and lo! Within it thou wilt find a sun."

From the Wikipedia entry on Seven Valleys – Haft-Vádí (1860)

the path of the soul on a spiritual journey passing through different stages, from this world to other realms which are closer to God, as first described by the 12th Century Sufi poet Attar in his Conference of the Birds. Bahá’u'lláh in the work explains the meanings and the significance of the seven stages.

In the introduction, Bahá’u'lláh says “Some have called these Seven Valleys, and others, Seven Cities.”

The stages are accomplished in order, and the goal of the journey is to follow “the Right Path”, “abandon the drop of life and come to the sea of the Life-Bestower”, and “gaze on the Beloved”.

The Hoopoe

The poetic text of 'Attar’s Mantiq al‑Tair comprises a series of parables narrated by the hoopoe, who leads a gathering of birds on a difficult journey to find the mythic Simurgh. Perhaps the best‑known image from the manuscript, this folio illustrates the small, crested hoopoe bird addressing his companions before their departure. This charming painting is one of four added to the original manuscript in the early seventeenth century at the court of Shah 'Abbas (r. 1587–1629), and is signed by the painter Habiballah.

"The Concourse of the Birds", Folio from a Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds)

Painting by Habiballah of Sava  (active ca. 1590–1610)

The Concourse of the Birds painted by Habib Allah. The hoopoe, center right, instructs the other birds on the Sufi path.


  Hoopoe

The Conference of the Birds (Persian: منطق الطیر‎, Mantiqu 't-Tayr, 1177) is a book of poems in Persian by Farid ud-Din Attar of approximately 4500 lines.

In the poem, the birds of the world gather to decide who is to be their king, as they have none. The hoopoe, the wisest of them all, suggests that they should find the legendary Simorgh, a mythical Persian bird roughly equivalent to the western Phoenix. 
 
The hoopoe leads the birds, each of whom represent a human fault which prevents man from attaining enlightenment. When the group of thirty birds finally reach the dwelling place of the Simorgh, all they find is a lake in which they see their own reflection.

Besides being one of the most celebrated examples of Persian poetry, this book relies on a clever word play between the words Simorgh – a mysterious bird in Iranian mythology which is a symbol often found in sufi literature, and similar to the Phoenix bird – and "si morgh" – meaning "thirty birds" in Persian.

It was in China, late one moonless night,

The Simorgh first appeared to mortal sight –

He let a feather float down through the air,

And rumours of its fame spread everywhere; ^[1]

Its most famous section is:

Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,

And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:

Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide

Return and back into your Sun subside

The story recounts the longing of a group of birds who desire to know the great Simorgh, and who, under the guidance of a leader bird, start their journey toward the land of Simorgh. 
One by one, they drop out of the journey, each offering an excuse and unable to endure the journey. 

Each bird has a special significance, and a corresponding didactic fault. The guiding bird is the hoopoe, while the nightingale symbolizes the lover. The parrot is seeking the fountain of immortality, not God and the peacock symbolizes the "fallen soul" who is in alliance with Satan.

The birds must cross seven valleys in order to find the Simorgh: Talab (Yearning), Eshq (Love), Marifat (Gnosis), Istighnah (Detachment), Tawheed (Unity of God), Hayrat (Bewilderment) and, finally, Fuqur and Fana (Selflessness and Oblivion in God). 

These represent the stations that a Sufi or any individual must pass through to realize the true nature of God.

Within the larger context of the story of the journey of the birds, Attar masterfully tells the reader many didactic short, sweet stories in captivating poetic style. 

Eventually only thirty birds remain as they finally arrive in the land of Simorgh – all they see there are each other and the reflection of the thirty birds in a lake – not the mythical Simorgh. 

It is the Sufi doctrine that God is not external or separate from the universe, rather is the totality of existence. 

The thirty birds seeking the Simorgh realise that Simorgh is nothing more than their transcendent totality. 

The idea of God within is an idea intrinsic to most interpretations of Sufism. 

As the birds realize the truth, they now reach the station of Baqa (Subsistence) which sits atop the Mountain Qaf.



For more information go to:
 http://sufibooks.info/Sufism/The_Conference_of_the_Birds_Fardiuddin_Attar.pdf


 

 This image of this painting by Habib Allah (c.1600) “The Concourse of the Birds” is available from the Wikimedia Commons. The original is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This is an illustration of the Persian mystic, Faridu’ud-Din Attar’s allegory (c.1100?) “The Conference of the Birds” which I believe is also called Mantiqu’t-Tayr Language of the Birds.

This work may have inspired   “Journey to the East” by
Herman Hesse.

It describes the seeker’s parallel journey to self-discovery, self-actualization, self-realization through the elusive search for God.
 

Siddhi Lakshmi Temple, Bkahtapur, Nepa

Traditional guardian figures flanking the steps of the Siddhi Lakshmi temple in Bkahtapur

Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money? | Video on TED.com

Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money? | Video on TED.com

Three Mystic Monkeys Netsuke

Antique Japanese Carved Okimono/Netsuke Figure
 http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Antique-Japanese-Carved-Okimono-Netsuke-Figure-/200908717593?pt=Asian_Antiques&hash=item2ec717be19

Hot Springs Monkeys

 










SOURCE:
2011 International Photography Award Winners - My Modern Metropolis
  2011 International Photography Award Winners - My Modern Metropolis http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/2011-international-photography-award-winners 

Quotes

"The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary."
- Thomas Edison

 

“Philosophy (nature) is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes. I mean the universe, but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word of it, and without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.”

-- Galileo, The Sidereal Messenger (1610)

When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important.

-- Krishnamurti, Beginnings of Learning

Patience

It is hard! But what can not be removed, becomes lighter through patience.
-- Horace, Carmina, I. 24. 19.





Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. 

-- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 4

 

 

Patience is the companion of wisdom. 

-- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

 

 

 

 

Patience

 

 

Patience is the companion of wisdom. 

-- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. 

-- Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)

 

 

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. 

- Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

 

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.  
-- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

 

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew. 

-- Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)

  

 

 

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. 

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, Act III, sc. 4

 

 

 

 

 

 
Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms: and he, that will venture out without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make shipwreck, and drown himself; first, in the cares and sorrows of this world; and, then, in perdition.
- Ezekiel Hopkins,  Death disarmed of it Sting Of Patience under Afflictions.

 

 

 

 

 

Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
-- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), V. 710.

 

Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.
- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims (1682) no. 234.

 

 

 

Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life, Stanza 9. 




All things come round to him who will but wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
Tales of a Wayside Inn, The Student's Tale, Part I. 




It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience.
- Horace Bushnell, p. 443.



Patience is the ballast of the soul that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms.
- Bishop Hopkins, p. 442.


Dispose thyself to patience rather than to comfort, and to the bearing of the cross rather than to gladness.
- Thomas à Kempis, p. 442. 


How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
-- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act II, scene 3, line 376.



He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.
- William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida Act I, scene i.



Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
- Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming, Part IV, Chapter V.


It is hard! But what can not be removed, becomes lighter through patience.
- Horace, Carmina, I. 24. 19.


For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
- Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes, line 352.

 

Value Your Health - Body, Mind and Spirit

‎

"Health is the greatest possession.
Contentment is the greatest treasure.
Confidence is the greatest friend.
Non-being is the greatest joy."

                                                                          - Lao Tzu