Wayne Muller Quotes

When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.

In that inevitable, excruciatingly human moment, we are offered a powerful choice. This choice is perhaps one of the most vitally important choices we will ever make, and it determines the course of our lives from that moment forward. The choice is this: Will we interpret this loss as so unjust, unfair, and devastating that we feel punished, angry, forever and fatally wounded-- or, as our heart, torn apart, bleeds its anguish of sheer, wordless grief, will we somehow feel this loss as an opportunity to become more tender, more open, more passionately alive, more grateful for what remains?

Some of us have a hard time believing that we are actually able to face our own pain. We have convinced ourselves that our pain is too deep, too frightening, something to avoid at all costs. Yet if we finally allow ourselves to feel the depth of that sadness and gently let it break our hearts, we may come to feel a great freedom, a genuine sense of release and peace, because we have finally stopped running away from ourselves and from the pain that lives within us.

The heart of most spiritual practices is simply this: Remember who you are. Remember what you love. Remember what is sacred. Remember what is true. Remember that you will die and that this day is a gift. Remember how you wish to live.

As Gandhi wisely points out, even as we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us.

Every single choice we make, no matter how small, is the ground where who we are meets what is in the world. And the fruits of that essential relationship- the intimate, fertile conversation between our own heart's wisdom and the way the world has emerged before us- becomes a lifelong practice of deep and sacred listening for the next right thing we are required to do. We make the only choice that feels authentic and honest, necessary and true in that moment.

If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath— our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us.

Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop, because our work is never completely done. With every accomplishment there arises a new responsibility... Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.

To pray is no small thing. It is nothing less than a sacred pilgrimage into the heart of the whole world.

When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest – we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.

Because we do not rest we lose our way...Poisoned by the hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

What if the healing of the world utterly depends on the ten-thousand invisible kindnesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life?

What is at the center of your life? Carefully examine where you spend your attention, your time. Look at your appointment book, your daily schedule…. This is what receives your care and attention--an by definition, your love.

For thousands of years we have gathered in circle--around fires, around bodies, around altars--because we can't do this alone.

Meditation helps me feel the shape, the texture of my inner life. Here, in the quiet, I can begin to taste what Buddhists would call my true nature, what Jews call the still, small voice, what Christians call the holy spirit.

We are called to be strong companions and clear mirrors to one another, to seek those who reflect with compassion and a keen eye how we are doing, whether we seem centered or off course ... we need the nourishing company of others to create the circle needed for growth, freedom and healing.

Gratitude invites a sense of sufficiency.

The greatest barrier to own own healing is not the pain, sorrow or violence inflicted upon us as children. Our greatest hindrance is our ongoing capacity to judge, to criticize, and to bring tremendous harm to ourselves. If we can harden our heart against ourselves and meet our most tender feelings with anger and condemnation, we simultaneously armor our heart against the possibility of gentleness, love and healing.

All life has emptiness at its core; it is the quiet hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and makes the music that is our life.

As we explore the nature of our gift, our goal is to move toward this kind of giving: cheerful giving that flows gently and easily, kingly giving that flows surely from who we are. As we encounter the questions—Who are we ? What do we love ?—the gift we bring will be easy, because our gift naturally emerges from who we are. The offering we bring is ourselves, just as we are. Our gift is our true nature. There can be no greater gift than this.

Every day, we are given countless opportunities to offer our gifts to those at work, in our families, our relationships.... If you give less than what you are, you dishonor the gift of your own precious life.

The last place we tend to look for healing is within ourselves.

Our lives are made of these moments. Simple words and actions, taken together, weave a single day, and our days become our life. Every gesture is a seed, and the seed determines the harvest.

Many of us incorrectly assume that a spiritual life begins when we change what we normally do in our daily life. We feel we must change our job, our living situation, our relationship, our address, our diet, or our clothes before we can truly begin a spiritual practice. And yet it is not the act but the awareness, the vitality, and the kindness we bring to our work that allows it to become sacred.

What we choose to love is very important for what we love leads our eyes, ears, and hearts on a pilgrimage that shapes the texture of our lives.

Even in the middle of a hurricane, the bottom of the sea is calm. As the storm rages and the winds howl, the deep waters sway in gentle rhythm, a light movement of fish and plant life. Below there is no storm.

When we do what we love, again and again, our life comes to hold the fragrance of that thing.

Emptiness is the pregnant void out of which all creation springs. But many of us fear emptiness. We prefer to remain...surrounded by things...we imagine are subject to our control.

What we love and what captures our curiosity draws us forward into some place of great destiny.

Like a path through the forest, Sabbath creates a marker for ourselves so, if we are lost, we can find our way back to our center.

Be not afraid. A kind life, a life of spirit, is fundamentally a life of courage-the courage simply to bring what you have, to bring who you are.

Even when our intentions are noble and our efforts sincere, even when we dedicate our lives to the service of others, the corrosive pressure of frantic over-activity can nonetheless cause suffering in ourselves and others. A "successful" life can become a violent enterprise.

In the soil of the quick fix is the seed of a new problem, because our quiet wisdom is unavailable.

If busyness can become a kind of violence, we do not have to stretch our perception very far to see that Sabbath time – effortless, nourishing rest – can invite a healing of this violence. When we consecrate a time to listen to the still, small voices, we remember the root of inner wisdom that makes work fruitful. We remember from where we are most deeply nourished, and see more clearly the shape and texture of the people and things before us.

All life requires a rhythm of rest. . . There is a rhythm in the way day dissolves into night, and night into morning. There is a rhythm as the active growth of spring and summer is quieted by the necessary dormancy of fall and winter. There is a tidal rhythm, a deep, eternal conversation between the land and the great sea.

A gift is like a seed; it is not an impressive thing. It is what can grow from the seed that is impressive. If we wait until our seed becomes a tree before we offer it, we will wait and wait, and the seed will die from lack of planting.... The miracle is not just the gift; the miracle is in the offering, for if we do not offer, who will?

A kind life...is fundamentally a life of courage.

Just because we are working hard does not mean we are making anything happen.

With every breath, the possibility of a new aspect of self arises.

Because we do not rest, we lose our way.

Can it then be that what we call the 'self' is fluid and elastic? It evolves, strikes a different balance with every new breath.

True kindness is rooted in a deep sense of abundance, out of which flows a sense that even as I give, it is being given back to me.

Effortlessness is the ability to slow down and listen for the spaces between the joints... Deep within all things there is a natural rhythm, a music of opening and closing, expansion and contraction.

The more spacious and larger our fundamental nature, the more bearable the pains in living.

We become what we love. Whatever you are giving your time and attention to, day after day, is the kind of person you will eventually become.