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Kindle Notes & Highlights
This message really is for you. It’s not everyone in the world who gets to read these words—only a very tiny minority of humans ever will. Nor should you believe that it’s some kind
of chance event that finds you reading them at this particular moment in your life. Only those of you with very specific karma will ever discover what I’m about to say
Don’t aim at success,’” he read. “‘The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue … as the unintended side effect of one’s dedication to a course greater than oneself.’”
What makes you purr? Of all the questions in the world, this is the most important.
“A reaction is automatic, habitual,” Ludo said. “A response is considered.
“Suffer comes from a Latin word meaning to carry. And while pain is sometimes unavoidable, suffering is not. For instance, we may have a very happy relationship with someone, and then we lose the person. We feel pain, of course: that’s natural. But when we continue to carry that pain, feeling constantly bereft, that’s suffering.”
“Third: don’t judge. When you say ‘This is a bad thing that’s happening,’ how often are you wrong? Losing a job may be exactly what you need to start a more fulfilling career. The end of a relationship may open more possibilities than you even know exist. When it happens you think bad. Later you may think the best thing that ever happened. So don’t judge, no matter how bad it seems at the time. You may be completely wrong.”
“Fourth: no swamp, no lotus. The most transcendent of flowers grows out of the filth of the swamp. Suffering is like the swamp. If it makes us more humble, more able to sympathize with others and more open to them, then we become capable of transformation and of becoming truly beautiful, like the lotus.
