“Spirituality is not religion. It is a path for us to generate happiness, understanding, and love, so we can live deeply each moment of our life. Having a spiritual dimension in our lives does not mean escaping life or dwelling in a place of bliss outside this world but discovering ways to handle life’s difficulties and generate peace, joy, and happiness right where we are, on this beautiful planet.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
by Janne Robinson:
You know what I respect more than people who don’t use the piece of paper they have no interest in using?
People who don’t finish the piece of paper.
That’s right y’all — people who drop out.
People who quit.
People who quit the things they no longer care for.
Don’t finish the law degree you have no interest in actually using. Our society gets hard ons for certification — but what I get hard ons for is people who follow through with their truth.
Don’t marry the person you are engaged to if you wake up one day and say, “I should be more excited than this.” Respect the person sleeping next to you by knowing somebody could and can love them better. Know if you stay for the sake of staying, you are taking up space in their life. Is following through with your word and giving someone an inauthentic half ass in it partner for life really a favor for them?
Break the lease and lose the damage deposit. Move to the city you really wanted to move to before you shrunk back to what was comfortable and signed on to yet another year lease in a city you outgrew eons ago.
Marriage is probably the biggest agreement we make, and sometimes most damaging to adjust.
How the fuck are we supposed to know that we will wake up everyday and love somebody?
That’s ridiculous.
Someday we might roll over and not love that person, and then what?
Feel bound with guilt and obligation to keep our word and try force ourselves back into love?
Thank God for divorce.
One of the most loving things we can do for both ourselves and other people is to honor our truths.
To say, “I don’t love you anymore. I don’t even know why or when it happened, but I don’t.” This gives both human beings the opportunity to go out into this world and love deeper, love again.
So, love somebody until you love them.
Do a job until you don’t love it.
Quit shit.
Start shit.
Walk away.
Go find what gives you relentless joy.
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Note: This is CdF’s favourite poem
by Sondra Ray
All kinds of different relationships are going on in the universe and they are healing, and one form is no better than another. The main thing is to get clear on is your relationship with the universe. When that one is working, all the others will, no matter what form you are in or not in.
In life we experience a continuous push toward to egoless-ness. A being has an intense desire to know its real self, to know the truth, the Eternal Source. Our over-riding desire is to discover this source of infinite love and to express this love in daily life.
The purpose of a relationship is to enhance these goals. Both partners must share this intention or they are missing the boat and they will have to keep dying and reincarnating until they get it!
A partner will bring up all your patterns. The truth is that your partner is your guru. Because they help you to get healed, you should always be thankful to them for serving you.
Each must understand that the most profound reason they are together is for the evolution of their souls. This creates a whole new vibration between the couple. There is a commitment to assist each others spiritual growth, and not one that is ruled by the ego.
A relationship should be about growth and movement. It should create a holy, interpersonal environment for the evolution of two souls. A relationship is a process; in that process, the couple should celebrate changes in themselves which are stimulated by one another. They should not resent the fact that the mate (the relationship) is encouraging them to change. Each should want the other to become all that he or she can be, and should not feel threatened by this desire. In other words, you should not hold yourself back in any way, nor should you allow the other to hold you back. Each should enjoy empowering the other, but neither should give away their power.
Relationship between two immortalists (enlightened couple) is eternal, immediately, and although the form of the relationship may change, many times, leaving is no longer an issue. There is abundance of joy, happiness, and outright bliss. There is a natural telepathy that occurs when the two are apart. Two together provide miraculous energy. They support each others’ continuing aliveness always; and this makes it safe to surrender totally. It is like a dream come true.
Partners are together for the evolution of their souls; they recognise their equality. They move toward “authentic empowerment” as opposed to the old archetype which reflects power as external. An authentically powerful person is humble and harmless, treasures life, forgives, takes responsibility, and sees perfection in everything.
The following is an excerpt from Be Free Where You Are by Thích Nhất Hạnh. He wrote this during the Vietnam War after the bombing of Bến Tre by the US AirForce:
I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep my loneliness warm—
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
I reflect upon this poem this entire week as I was very angry on Monday when my father told me that “someone” they travelled to Portland, OR with got them in trouble at the US border by recommending they take the NEXUS exit despite not having a NEXUS pass upon travelling back to Vancouver, BC. My sister remarked that I should control my anger because I sent her a few text messages about this incident.
Thich Naht Hanh advises “you take care of your anger and are able to find relief, you will be able to live happily with much joy.”
Expand your reality to the point where you pursue what you love doing and excel at it. Involve yourself in high-energy levels of trust, optimism, appreciation, reverence, joy and love when you engage in every activity in your life.
Coup de plume 
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