Sunbeams
She loved the serene brutality of the ocean, loved the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.
She loved the serene brutality of the ocean, loved the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.
It was the last day of school, and I was walking with my dad. . . . Suddenly, he paused, looked at me intently, and said, “Son, you’re a black male, and that’s two strikes against you.” To the general public, anything that I did would be perceived as malicious and deserving of severe punishment, and I had to govern myself accordingly. I was seven years old.
This troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separate from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.
“Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.”
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all — but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.
Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious and direct. If we can open, then we suddenly begin to see that our expectations are irrelevant compared with the reality of the situations we are facing.
Once we open ourselves, then we land on what is.
We have to be utterly broken before we can realize that it is impossible to better the truth. It is the truth that we deny which so tenderly and forgivingly picks up the fragments and puts them together again.
Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.