Haemin Sunim

Try to share your true feelings.
Even if the other person is hurt at first, eventually she will be grateful to know the truth.
The truth is freeing to both the one who expresses it and the one who hears it.

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Mark Nepo

When young, it was my first fall from love. It broke me open the way lightning splits a tree. Then, years later, cancer broke me further. This time it broke me wider, the way a flood carves the banks of a narrow stream. Then, having to leave a twenty-year marriage. This broke me the way wind shatters glass. Then, in Africa, it was the anonymous face of a schoolboy beginning his life. This broke me yet again. But this was like hot water melting soap.
Each time I tried to close up what had been opened. It was a reflex, natural enough. But the lesson was, of course, the other way. The lesson was in never closing again.
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Pomnyun

If you want to to achieve something you can either keep trying or quit. Feeling stressed out over things you want to achieve but failing to do so is because of greed. Stress comes from having a high expectation but not wanting to put in a requisite effort. So it's very easy to distinguish between impure and pure desires. If you suffer because your desire wasn't fulfilled then that is the result of your greed. However, if you are able to say, "Oh that didn't work, how about if I try it this way? Hmm, that didn't work either. Let's try this way." If you keep such an investigative mind, failure doesn't cost you suffering, because you are driven by genuinely wanting to achieve that goal.
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Spirit of Faith

During the war, Duryodhan taunted Bheeshma, the commander-in-chief of the Kaurav army, saying he was being lenient with the Pandavas, for he could have easily killed them, had he chosen to do so. Bheeshma felt insulted, and resolved that by sunset the next day, he would either kill their foremost warrior, Arjun, or to protect him, Shree Krishna would have to break His vow and lift weapons.
When the battle ended that evening, this news spread in the Pandava camp. Everyone was sad to hear it as Bheeshma was known for keeping his vows. Shree Krishna was lost in contemplation about what could be done. He had vowed not to lift weapons during the war, but now it concerned Arjun’s life.
Pondering over the problem, Shree Krishna realised that it was midnight. He thought, ‘If I am so concerned, how worried must Arjun be, for it is his death that Grandsire Bheeshma has announced.’ He walked over to Arjun’s tent to console him. However, He found sounds of snoring emanating from the tent as Arjun was fast asleep.
Shree Krishna shook him awake, ‘My dear friend, do you not know about the vow made by Bheeshma?’
‘Of course, I do, my Lord.’
‘Then are you not worried?’
‘When You are so concerned about my protection that You are unable to sleep till early morning, then why should I worry for myself?’
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The Little Book of IKIGAI by Ken Mogi

The book "Ikigai: The secret Japanese way to live a happy and long life" by Ken Mogi, explains the concepts of the Ikigai philosophy, a Japanese origin word that describes the pleasures and senses of life.

Through 5 steps, the author will help you find your Ikigai, showing how it is rooted in Japanese culture, and give lessons that will change your life. All of this through an easy reading, making the absorption of knowledge easier.
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You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf

People who don't understand meditation think that it is some kind of special inner manipulation which will magically shut off these waves so that the mind's surface will be flat, peaceful, and tranquil. But just as you can't put a glass plate on the water to calm the waves, so you can't artificially suppress the waves of your mind, and it is not too smart to try. It will only create more tension and inner struggle, not calmness. That doesn't mean that calmness is unattainable. It's just that it cannot be attained by misguided attempts to suppress the mind's natural activity.

It is possible through meditation to find shelter from much of the wind that agitates the mind. Over time, a good deal of the turbulence may die down from lack of continuous feeding. But ultimately the winds of life and of the mind will blow, do what we may. Meditation is about knowing something about this and how to work with it.
~Wherever you go There you are

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J Krishnamurti

So can the brain ever understand the universe? They can say Venus is so much gas, has so many minerals, and so on, but the material description of Venus is not the beauty of it, the extraordinary quietness of it. And to understand all that immensity, can our brain be quiet? Not everlastingly chattering, chattering, chattering. Can that brain become extraordinarily simple and therefore extraordinarily subtle? And if that brain is capable of that subtleness, that immense sense of the great simplicity of time-thought and the rest of it, then perhaps that mind that is not the brain can communicate with it. The present brain cannot communicate with that mind, obviously. Though we do our utmost to communicate with it, all kinds of tricks, all forms of control, sacrifice, taking vows, right? And that thing can never... one can never touch it that way. The religious mind, religious brain, always has the background of great silence and solitude.

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Thich Nhat Hanh

Reality cannot be described in terms of being and nonbeing. Being and nonbeing are notions created by you, exactly like the notions of birth and death, coming and going.
If your beloved one can no longer be seen, it does not mean that from being she has become nonbeing. If you realize this truth about your beloved, you will suffer much less, and if you realize this truth about yourself, you will transcend your fear of dying, of nonbeing.

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Adi Shankara

Waste not your efforts to win the love of or to fight against friend and foe, children and relatives. See yourself in everyone and give up all feelings of duality completely.

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Om Swami

Just like our desires and emotions are cyclical, so are the good and bad times in our lives. It is absolutely impossible that each day will turn out the way you expect it to, or that every time only pleasing news will knock on your door. At times, situations are undesirable and unpleasant, but we can’t avoid them. We have to deal with them. As they say, someone’s got to make the trains run on time. Granted, it’s not always feasible to deal with unpleasant situations with a pleasant mood, but it is possible to handle them with patience.

yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya
siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga uchyate.
(Bhagavad Gita 2.48)

‘O, the finest archer!’ Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘the yoga of equanimity is to maintain your steadfastness in the face of both success and failure, it is to act with a degree of detachment.’

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Pomnyun

There are two ways for people to become happy. One way is by doing work that they enjoy. However, although this may be fun, it may feel meaningless when they look back on it later on. For example, drinking and hanging out every day with your friends may have been a lot of fun, but when you look back on it in 10 years you will feel like you wasted your time. When you go to a bar, you have a great time, talking loudly and laughing hard, but when you leave the bar, you feel kind of empty. You may feel that way because there are no benefits to spending your time on such pursuits.

Another way is helping others. As human beings, we feel happy when we are useful to others or do something beneficial for others. Although doing something that helped others may have been very hard at the time, when we look back on it, we feel proud. We feel that what we did was meaningful and beneficial, so we believe we did the right thing even if it took a lot of effort.

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Whatever you do, make it an offering to me – the food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you give, even your suffering. In this way you will be freed from the bondage of karma, and from its results both pleasant and painful. (9:27–28)
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