Tom's Blog

When you are working, it’s so easy to become consumed by what you are doing;

Especially with computers, which have a way of hypnotizing you;

It becomes very important to create a gap while you are working to deliberately break your train of thought;

Pause, relax your mind, be thankful for your life, and liberate yourself for just a few moments;

When you pause in the midst of a busy schedule, your natural intelligence clicks in, and you are given a sense of the right thing to do;

As long as we are on automatic pilot, dictated to by our minds, there is no intelligence – it’s only a rat race;

Make these little short gaps a habit in your daily work to count your blessings and put what you are doing in proper perspective.

 

Pema Chodron

Instead of sight being the predominant sense perception all day, occasionally let sound and hearing take over for a while;

It’s a very powerful way to cut through our conventional way of looking at the world;

At any moment, just stop, close your eyes, and listen intently;

Instead of being absorbed in thinking, planning, and worrying, you could be here right now;

Take three conscious breaths;

During your day, deliberately make some gaps in your sight perception;

As soon as you do, you realize how big your mind is.

 

Pema Chodron

Since death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing that you can do with your life?

Throughout your day, you can pause, take a break from your usual thoughts, and wake up to the magic and vastness of the world around you;

Every morning you should ask yourself, “What is the best use that I can make of this day?”

At the end of each day ask yourself, “Did I move any closer to being more open-minded, compassionate, loving, and caring?”

It is so important to make the best use of your time with whatever amount of time you have left.

 

Pema Chodron

We know and understand the sorrows and troubles of your mortal life;

And, because we understand, we ask you to strive to surrender your will and desires to the will of God, knowing that nothing happens by chance in human life;

All the events follow a definite spiritual law;

It is because you cannot see far enough along the road your spirit must travel that you become overwrought with fear and anxiety;

God knows your need, and His angel servers are always active on the earthly plane to bless and uplift humanity;

All they need is the cooperation of human love.

 

White Eagle

We do not have to sink into despair about global warming, we can act;

If we just sign a petition and forget about it, nothing is going to change;

Urgent action must be taken at an individual level;

We all want to live in peace and in a sustainable environment;

Most of us don’t have a concrete way of making our commitment to sustainable living a reality in our daily lives;

It is time for each of us to wake up and take action;

We must protect the planet by preventing deforestation and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases;

Please get active in some way to preserve the planet;

Don’t just assume that others are going to do it;

We all have to participate on some level.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh

Day in and day out we spend most of our time tending to ourselves;

We try to use the world to cherish and protect ourselves;

We want to be liked, loved, to feel cozy, admired, appreciated, stimulated, and respected;

Our longing for happiness causes us to centralize everything that happens in relation to me;

If something good happens to someone, we relate it to me;

If something bad happens to someone, we relate it to me;

Even when we love someone, it’s all about me;

If happiness could be achieved by self-absorption, we should all be very happy by now;

But if we feel “it’s all about me,” we become a victim of our own attachment;

Happiness requires that we change our focus;

We need to include others in our wish for happiness and balance self-care with care for others;

This will reduce our fears and anxieties;

Putting others in the center instead of ourselves brings about a tenderness that wells up within us;

We begin feeling grateful to others, which will change the whole atmosphere of our minds;

 

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

I know for a certainty that loving-kindness is the antidote to anger, fear, jealousy, and hate;

When my cellmate assaulted me the other day for no apparent reason, I treated him with loving-kindness;

The next day when he ran out of coffee, I offered him some of mine;

He looked confused and apologized for his actions;

Later they moved him to another cell, and every time I see him, he comes up to me to find out how I’m doing;

We are all on a different path, and that is why there are so many teachers out there for us each day;

I know I am innocent and have a right to be bitter and angry, but I have learned so much inside this prison;

I have learned from the teachings of Jesus and Buddha to treat everyone and everything with loving-kindness;

There is no such thing as right and wrong, good and bad, but I believe I am measured by how I treat others and situations that happen to me;

I wouldn’t change a thing, because I have learned to live my life to the absolute fullest.

 

Derrick Hecox

Illinois State Prison

Is our constant expansion worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free?

Why is growth so sacred to our society;

Not intellectual or spiritual growth, but economic growth;

We don’t seek stable, sustainable economic growth, but the “let-er-rip”, “pave-it-don’t-save-it” growth;

Our holy grail is an ever-higher standard of living that must be sought and grasped at almost any cost;

Polluted air, a soaring crime rate, a degraded quality of life, don’t seem to deter us;

Getting and spending is a big part of what we Americans are all about;

Our national religion is a kind of evangelical consumerism;

We are paying a large price for a consumer culture, one that demands instant gratification;

We have lowered the quality of our moral lives – we are the fattest people on earth – all signs of spiritual emptiness;

What we have built over the last half-century is not civilization – it may be development, but not civilization;

The more we spoil the earth and divorce ourselves from the rhythms, cycles, and beauty of the natural world, the less civilized we become;

We should spend more time watching geese fly than watching television;

We should devote more time to absorbing the information wild creatures can teach us rather than so much babble on the Internet;

Woods and rivers can teach us lessons about patience and humility, about the interconnectedness of all living things, about discerning what is important and lasting and what is trivial and transient;

John Muir said, “each wildflower is a mirror reflecting the Creator”;

We need to be  reminded that consumption isn’t the point of being human.

 

Philip Caputo

Life used to be so much simpler, it seems;

Just checking the ripeness of a peach in the grocery store brings up questions:

1.     The pesticides used in growing it;

2.     The conditions of the workers and the politics of the country it came from;

3.     The oil that was burned in the long distance it had to travel;

4.     The working conditions on the freighter it traveled on;

5.     The business practices of the multi-national firm selling it;

6.     And so on, and so on, and so on;

If you multiply that by all the other small things we do each day, the questions can become overwhelming.

But if complex systems are made up of many small things, then it’s possible that big things can be accomplished by small acts;

We may not see the immediate result of those acts;

But each one of the small acts we do in a positive way each day is both a reminder of the complex problems and a gateway to changing them.

 

Jim Gimian

To become a spiritual person may require suffering and endless patience;

It requires love for others as well as ourselves;

We have to learn to make friends with all the world;

We have to surrender to the greatness of God;

We must allow our pride and ego to melt away and become humble;

We have to break our attachment to material things and realize the value of spiritual things;

It may take a lifetime to accomplish this, but if you do, it’ll be the most worthwhile thing you’ve ever done.

 

Mahatma Gandhi