Winter 2011/12

"Encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of your practice, provided you are able to transform the calamity and misfortune into the path."

"I am always quite cheerful! It is, I think, the result of my own practice and training. In my lifetime, I have lost my country and have been reduced to being totally dependent on the goodwill of others......

.....of course there are tragic incidents and I feel sad when I think about them. However, I don't feel overwhelmed by sadness. Old, familiar faces disappear, and new faces appear, but I still maintain my happiness and peace of mind."

-- Dalai Lama, "The path to tranquility"

"Obviously we can't change what's already happened. Anxiety, frustration, worry -- whatever is there is there, for better or worse. It does no good to get upset about it. All we can do is change the way we RESPOND to what's there.

So rather than meeting it with more judgment and frenzy, we meet it with acceptance, calm, and kindness. We're practicing being the sort of person we want to be, RIGHT NOW. We stop perpetuating the same old cycle. If we can't muster a calm and kind response, even just taking a breath and acknowledging what's happening is a change in the right direction. ANY tiny step in the direction of less frenzy is great. That's all it takes." -- Sunada

"The psychology of the West can take a lesson from the East, which pays more attention to the way of acceptance and less to the things to be accepted. It is interested in creating a state of mind that will be prepared for all eventualities, all surprises both from the outer and from the inner universes. It does not go out of its way looking for things to accept." -- Alan Watts.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson

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Thanks for stopping SOPA and PIPA with your outcry. The fight for freedom continues.

wishing you a happy new lunar year
[london thameside]