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Human Vulnerability

‘We have to get to know and be honest about our particular strategies for dealing with vulnerability and learn to use mindfulness to allow ourselves to experience more of that vulnerability rather than less of it. To open yourself up to need, longing, dependency, and reliance on others means opening yourself to the truth that non of us can do this on our own. We really do need each other, just as we need parents and teachers. We need all those people in our lives who make us feel uncertain. The goal is not getting to a place where we are going to escape all that, but creating a container that allows us to be more and more human, to feel more and more.’

- Barry Magid, Right Here with You.

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Wading Through Mud

The spiritual path is not always pretty. It’s generally pretty where you are going, but not always so lovely along the way. When you begin a spiritual path, you have to start where you are. If you happen to be standing in the middle of a mud puddle, then you have to go through mud. There is no way around it.

You can imagine the spiritual path to be a blissful walk toward a beautiful light, but if that’s not what you are feeling, then you have to get rid of that idea and see what’s around you. If what you are feeling hurts, then your only choice is to deal with that hurt. The spiritual path provides the courage to deal with that hurt. It gives you some boots to wear as you stand in the mud.

A spiritual path is not imagining things that are not there. It is seeing what is there clearly. If you are in mud, you are in mud. If you are suffering, you are suffering. If you are feeling blissful, you are feeling blissful. The bliss is no more spiritual than the suffering. The suffering is no more spiritual than bliss.

When you develop your practice to the point where you can handle any mud, the world will continue to find mud for you. You will never choose to take the muddy path, but again and again you will. That’s how the path goes. The blissful light is there too. When you are not consumed with the mud, you will see it as you wade.

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Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don Miguel Ruiz (via lazyyogi)

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We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.

Anthony Hopkins (via perrfectly)

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Kids.  Teenagers.  As someone staring 40 in the face lemme tell you a thing.

You are going to be horrified and embarrassed at some point by the shit you are doing now.

And you are going to wish with all your might you’d done more of it.  

You’re gonna wish you had more selfies, more photos, more videos being dumb with your friends.  You’re going to wish you’d had your hair even higher or your shoes even sparklier.  

Go.  Document the shit out of your ridiculous life.  Fuck trends but if you wanna be trendy, go all in.  Fuck in-groups and subcultures but if one sings to you, do it all.  Be exactly as cool or punk rock or goth or fandom or country or hardcore or hip hop or whatever, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Just don’t hurt people.  That’s the only thing you’ll ever genuinely live to regret.

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