Reflective World

Love is a living, breathing thing. There is no need to force it to grow in a particular direction. If we start by being easy and gentle with ourselves, we will find it is just there inside of us, solid and healing.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed.

There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it, you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.

The first element of true love is loving kindness.
The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness.
You can be the sunshine for another person.
You can't offer happiness until you have it for yourself.
So build a home inside by accepting yourself
and learning to love and heal yourself.
Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can
create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment.
Then you have something to offer the other person.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Khandro Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Creating a metaphor is like composing music, and metaphors affect us in the same way music does. A tune consists of notes in a relationship, it can be transposed higher or lower and will still be the same tune, provided the notes still have the same relationships to each other, the same distances between them, as they had in the original tune. At a deeper level, these notes combine to make chords, and a sequence of chords will have certain relationships to each other. Musical rhythm is how long different notes last relative to each other. Music is meaningful in a different way to language. It goes straight to the unconscious; the left brain has nothing to catch on to.