The Teachings Are Infinite (I Vow to Learn Them All)

Make yourself impeccable.
–Anne Waldman

One must be training and polished in the actual affairs of life.
–Wang Yangming

Drop the story-line.
–Pema Chödrön 

I take refuge in the Buddha. 
I take refuge in the Dharma. 
I take refuge in the Sangha.
–Three Jewels

What is the best time to do each thing?
Who are the most important people to work with?
What is the best thing to do at each time?
–Leo Tolstoy


A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.
–Maude

Soviet humanism, German humanism, Assyrian humanism, Martian humanism-there were so many of them in the world, and the primary aim of each one of them was to kill off as many people as possible; they all began and ended in Babi Yars. Babi Yar-that is the real symbol of your cul­tures and of your humanisms.
–A. Kuznetsov

Bi you shi yan.
“Always have a task.”
–Mengzi

I gave an onion.
–Grushenka

Et par le pouvoir d’un mot
Je recommence ma vie
Je suis né pour te connaître
Pour te nommer
Liberté
–Paul Eluard

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. That’s enough. When you see you can do that, you continue, and you give two little joys, and you remove two little sufferings, then three, and then four. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now.
–Chan Khong

Don’t be swayed by external circumstances.
–Lojong #50

Expand. Radiate. Dissolve.
–Lama Surya Das

To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.
–Teresa of Avila

I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.
–Pablo Picasso

Diamondshatteringbullshit
–Jack Kerouac

The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character. 
–George Eliot

It’s always just one thought away. The living spirit, the community of our consciousness, the guru within—whatever you want to call it, is always just one thought away. One thought!
–Ram Dass

Happiness is not an individual thing.
–Nhat Hanh

Split the wood I am beside you 
Lift the stone I am among you
–Yeshua

I’m sort of an atheist.  I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible.  Take the Disciples, for instance.  They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth.  They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while he was alive, they were about as much use to him as a hole in the head.  All they did was keep letting him down.
-Holden Caulfield

I bore witness in the belief that there is no future for mankind if it refuses to face itself in the mirror of the Holocaust, disturbing and horrifying though that mirror may be….if we forget the Holocaust, we deprive ourselves of the knowledge of the human soul, with its hidden resources of love and care, of dignity and courage, for these were in fact the qualities that the humiliated, spat upon, doomed Jews displayed every day of the tortured lives they led between the barbed-wire fences of the ghetto.
–Chava Rosenfarb

Thoughts of the past and future spoil your time. 
–Dipa Ma

But whatever be the motive of insult, it is always best to overlook it, for folly scarcely  can deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
–Samuel Johnson

Il n’y a pas d’homme si sage qu’il soit, me dit-il, qui n’ait à telle époque de sa jeunesse prononcé des paroles, ou même mené une vie, dont le souvenir ne lui soit désagréable et qu’il souhaiterait être aboli. Mais il ne doit pas absolument le regretter, parce qu’il ne peut être assuré d’être devenu un sage, dans la mesure où cela est possible, que s’il a passé par toutes les incarnations ridicules ou odieuses qui doivent précéder cette dernière incarnation-là.
–Marcel Proust

General duties of a teacher — pull everything out of your students.
–Sister Corita Kent

The first word that comes to mind is “presence.”  Presence to what is, especially to oneself. That means, not giving up one’s instincts, being present to one’s own health, emotional and mental, and bringing one’s most holistic self to the world.  How many activists come to activism because they are simply angry people, and activism is a sanctioned way of being eternally angry and indignant? How many people show up to the table, but cannot follow through on any needed task, and hamstring a greater movement because they lack integrity? How do we move forward without a great deal of honesty, presence, and also respect and love for one another? Do we really want to move forward with righteous indignation? How much of the Left is marked by the same emotional diseases as the establishment?
–Clara Takarabe