Reading Archive (Imperfection)
Unattainable Goal of Peace
Aung San Suu Kyi
[Nobel Lecture, June 16, 2012] The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk. It may be questioned whether a...
Response Vs. Reaction
Adyashanti
When I was 19 and 20, part of what drove my urge to awaken was that we were still in the midst of the Cold War, and it looked as though we might imminently drop bombs on each other. I saw the insanity...
Seven Stages Of The Ego
Rumi, as told by Elif Shafak
The first stage is the Depraved Ego (Nafs), the most primitive and common state of being, when the soul is entrapped in worldly pursuits. Most human beings are stuck there, struggling and suffering in...
Do A Nice Thing For Your Future Self
Elizabeth Gilbert
I grew up on a small family farm, with plants and animals needing care in every direction, so vacations were rare. But one summer my parents convinced a neighboring farmer to tend to our goats and chi...
Exhausting Quest For Perfection
Brene Brown
The quest for perfection is exhausting and unrelenting, but as hard as we try, we can't turn off the tapes that fill our heads with messages like "Never good enough" and "What will ...
The Surrender Experiment
Michael Singer
Life rarely unfolds exactly as we want it to. And if we stop and think about it, that makes perfect sense. The scope of life is universal, and the fact that we are not actually in control of life&rsqu...
Are You Ready To Lose Your World?
Adyashanti
There is a very famous poem written by the third patriarch of Zen, Seng-ts’an, called the Hsin-Hsin Ming, which translates as Verses in Faith Mind. In this poem Seng-ts’an writes these lin...
This World is Perfect
Swami Vivekananda
Is it not a blasphemy to say that the world needs our help? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run,...
Be With the Storms
Sri Sri Ravishankar
How to free yourself from the grip of storms? This is the only basic problem in this universe. The first thing is to become aware of it and stop regretting it. Like waves come and go, storms in your l...
The Poisoned Tree
Jack Kornfield
The maturity we can develop in approaching our difficulties is illustrated by the traditional story of a poisoned tree. On first discovering a poisoned tree, some people see only its danger. Their imm...
Totality Not Perfection
Osho
The very idea of perfectionism drives people crazy. The perfectionist is bound to be a neurotic, he cannot enjoy life till he is perfect. And perfection as such never happens, it is not in the nature...
Inclining Toward Freedom, Even Through Imperfections
Larry Yang
If we focus only on awakening, we miss most of the spiritual practice. I’m much more interested in how we practice with not awakening, with not being enlightened, because, frankly, those states ...
Living With a Rebel Within
Dzogchen Ponlop
Your true mind is a mind of joy, free from all suffering. That is who you really are. That is the true nature of your mind and the mind of everyone. But your mind doesn't just sit there being perfect,...
The Way You Live Today
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Your entire destiny is contained in and determined by the way you live today: the orientation you give to your thoughts and feelings, and the activities on which you choose to spend your energies.(â€...
Transforming 'Some Scars'
Sally Kempton
The Sanskrit word "samskara" can be translated just the way it sounds in English: as'some scars." Samskaras are energy patterns in our consciousness. I always picture them as mental grooves, like the ...