Status Updates From El libro de la alegría / Th...

“I often felt like, for these two men, holiness and lightheartedness were indivisible.”

In the land of Gandhi that we were in, I thought of his totemic words when asked if he was a Hindu: "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, and a Jew." We were looking for human truth, and we would drink from the cup of wisdom from whatever source it came.

Oh how lovely

“I've never been quite sure where meditation ends and prayer begins, or where prayer ends and meditation begins. I have heard it said that prayer is when we speak to God, and meditation is when God answers.
Whether it is God answering or some wiser part of our own intelligence, I am not sure it mattered to me, as I was just trying to quiet the inner noise and listen through the thick and enveloping silence.”

“Marriages, even the best ones —perhaps especially the best ones-are an ongoing process of spoken and unspoken forgiveness.” <3

"I prefer, after my death," the Dalai Lama said with a laugh, "that you search for my reincarnation, that you carry the investigation rather than an antireligious, atheistic, Communist government."

Lol

“Joy, it seemed, was a strange alchemy of mind over matter. The path to joy, like with sadness, did not lead away from suffering and adversity but through it.”

A prayer for cultivating Mudita:

As for suffering I do not wish even the slightest; as for happiness I am never satisfied.
In this, there is no difference between others and me.
Bless me so I may take joy in others' happiness.

“we should recognize our shared humanity. These are our human brothers and sisters, who have the same right and the same desire to have a happy life. This is not a spiritual thing. It is simply common sense. We are part of the same society. We are part of the same humanity. When humanity is happy, we will be happy.
When humanity is peaceful, our own lives are peaceful.“

“Mudita recognizes that life is not a zero-sum game, that there is not just one slice of cake in which someone else's taking more means we get less. Mudita sees joy as limitless.”

Wow. Love that