PresencePresence
AwarenessNothing here is separate
Follow one thought back through the chain and see where it began.
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MeaningThe depth and vastness of life
A corridor can be extremely long and still be a corridor.
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ContemplationThe vastness we keep looking away from
We look up for four seconds and then go inside. Something in us knows what is up there.
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BelongingWhy we want to be understood
Meet somebody exactly like you, and would that satisfy it? Almost certainly not.
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For womenThe woman nobody sees
She is thanked constantly. That is not the same as being seen.
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Self-worthWe can only give what we have
People feel what is actually being handed over, even when nobody can name it.
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Self-acceptanceAccepting yourself is the hardest part
In learning to accept ourselves, we learn to accept everybody else. There is no other route.
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Self-acceptanceAre you your own friend?
Would anybody speak to a person they cared about the way they speak to themselves?
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Self-acceptanceWe are the best and we are the worst
Praise stops landing once a person has met the whole of themselves.
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AwarenessEvery good has a bad we cannot see
What will anybody do on the day they can see both in the same thing?
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SeeingIt takes courage to see what is actually there
We are taught to accept one half of a thing and to fight, ignore or deny the other.
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Self-honestyDo not say it is fine when it is not fine
The thing is already known. It has simply been agreed that it will not be looked at.
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AuthenticityLiving in your own truth
Take away the possibility of anybody ever knowing, and see what survives.
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Self-compassionNobody would believe you are struggling
Everything they can see is true. And none of it is what is happening.
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Self-compassionWhy the worst year was the necessary one
The pain was not the problem. It was the first honest message received in years.
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The inner lifeThe restlessness is telling you something
Go below the surface and find the root, or spend another decade managing the symptom.
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The inner lifeSilence is not empty
Most people find it unproductive. Nothing anywhere is fuller.
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BalanceThe balance between the inner and the outer
Forty years given to one direction and almost nothing to the other, and it is called a full life.
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EnoughWhat if you already have everything?
Not that there will be enough one day. That nothing was ever missing.
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MeaningThe commitments we make without noticing
Each small yes was nothing. Twenty years of them is everything.
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EnoughThe wanting that has no end
Reach the line and it moves. It has always moved. That is what a line is.
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EnoughWe do not own anything
It was always a loan, and we have been behaving as though it were an inheritance.
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PresenceThe race we never agreed to run
At that speed nothing outside the window can be seen, and the window was the whole point.
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ContemplationWhere do our thoughts come from?
If we made this thought, why did we not know what it was going to be?
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The mindIntelligence is not the same as knowing
All the intelligence in the world is only data, arranged well.
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AuthenticityTrying to walk someone else's path
Every step somebody took can be repeated, and still arrive nowhere at all.
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ContemplationKnowledge does not come from books
A book can only confirm or reject what is already in us. It cannot put it there.
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Self-understandingThe one story you have never read
We know how other people's stories end. We have never sat down with our own.
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SeeingLooking is not seeing
It has been in front of us the whole time. That was never the difficulty.
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Seeing
PresenceLife is not in the past or the future
One is finished and one has not begun. Both are made entirely of thinking.
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PresenceHow many moments were you actually here for?
Not how long have we lived. How much of it were we in the room for.
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AwarenessWe are moving in our sleep
A person can do a hundred things in a day and not be present for one of them.
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Self-compassionGuilt and fear are like termites
What they eat is peace, so slowly that there is never a day anyone can point to.
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ConditioningThe fear we are taught before we can walk
We are taught fear early, we hold it all our lives, and then we pass it on faithfully.
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The mindWhat we do to a feeling when we hold it down
Nothing that is held down goes away. It waits, and it gains weight.
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The mindThinking is not worrying
Both go in one box marked overthinking, and the useful one is lost with the other.
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The mindThe mind is a baby
When the mind does not understand something, it resists. That is what we call difficulty.
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Self-honestyThe part of the heart that closes
The hurt is never shown. But something shuts, and nothing will open it.
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BoundariesNobody crossed the line. We kept moving it.
And then one day a person looks for where they end, and cannot find it.
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AttachmentWhere does attachment begin?
Cut off one expectation and another is already waiting to take its place.
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AttachmentNobody hurt you. Your expectation did.
An agreement was made that she was never told about, and then she was held to it.
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AttachmentThe apple tree and the mango
It will still give apples. And if it could feel, it would spend that whole time feeling less than a mango tree.
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QuestioningThe questions that are not welcome
It is not that the question is difficult. It is that asking it makes you strange.
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Questioning
ConditioningHow much of what you believe did you choose?
We did not arrive at most of our convictions. We inherited them and then defended them as though we had.
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ConditioningThe layers we put on to be accepted
If what they love is the covering, then what exactly is being loved?
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The inner lifeLiving on the surface
One can come up for a moment or two. Nobody can live up there.
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BelongingThe loneliness that has nothing to do with people
Nobody is lonely for lack of company. We are lonely when we have gone away from ourselves.
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BelongingWhy we say we are fine
It is not the sadness we hide. It is the risk of showing it and being met with nothing.
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IdentityThe image we build, and what it costs us
A perfect image, built to answer people who stopped watching decades ago.
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MeaningWhat do our achievements actually give us?
They admire us, and in their admiration there is longing, and disappointment in themselves.
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MeaningThe emptiness that came after everything
We keep waiting for the feeling to arrive. It does not arrive.
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