Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Sacred World

Normally, people think of the placebo effect as a kind of joke, a laughable con that makes us believe that something ineffective and neutral has important powers of healing, and in scientific experiments, a kind of failure. Now though, in the scientific world, there is a greater respect and appreciation for the physical results our brain activity can create, the neurotransmitters, endorphins, and dopamine it uses for therapeutic benefits. The Sacred World practices in the Vajrayana tradition have a similar function in the psychological/spiritual realm. As Dzongsar Khyentse said, they’re “a temporary solution, a placebo to be used until emptiness is understood.”

Given the foundational perspective that the sacred world isn’t anything that we create but rather the basic nature of reality, something we discover; the practice of “seeing all beings as Buddhas, all sounds as Mantra, and all thoughts as Wisdom” becomes—not any kind of self-imposed delusion; but rather, a skillful means to realizing who and what we really are. As Chögyam Trungpa said, “you practice first, and you figure out what you are doing afterward.”

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Quotes (112)

“Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.”

Themes: Sacred World

“The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when ation are performed as worship of God. Therefore, you must perform every action sacramentally and be free from all attachment to result.”

Vyasa व्यास 1 via Bhagavadgita
Hindu immortals, Vishnu avatar, 5th incarnation of Brahma
from Mahābhārata महाभारतम्

“Each new dawn is a miracle; each new sky fills with beauty. Their testimony speaks to the whole world and reaches to the ends of the earth.”

King David 1000 – 920 BCE
"The baffled king composing Hallelujah!"
from Book of Psalms

“The glorious heaven stretches itself to its widest and the multitudinous stars sparkle
Gladdening the hearts of the toil-wearied shepherds
While champing, war-wearied horses close by their chariots wait the coming of gold-throned dawn.”

Homer 1
Primogenitor of Western culture
from Iliad

Themes: Sacred World

“No holy place existed without us then, no woodland, no dance, no sound… I prayed one word: ‘I want.’”

Sappho 612 – 570 BCE
“The Poetess” and most famous Greek woman

“Tampering makes thing worse because life is sacred just as it it.”

Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Shan Dao, chapter #29
(Lǎozǐ)
from Tao Te Ching 道德经 Dàodéjīng

“The earth flows with milk, flows with wine, flows with nectar of bees;
Possessed, ecstatic, he leads their happy cries;
Run, dance, delirious, possessed! Sing for joy, praise Dionysus, god of joy!”

Euripides 480 – 406 BCE via Philip Vellacott, Shan Dao
Ancient humanitarian influence continuing today
from Bacchae Βάκχαι

Themes: Sacred World

“All of us with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory and are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory”

Jesus 3 BCE – 30 CE via Second Corinthians
from New Testament Διαθήκη

Themes: Sacred World

“He who drinks from my mouth will become as I am and I shall be he.”

Jesus 3 BCE – 30 CE via Joseph Campbell
from Gospel According to Thomas

Themes: Sacred World

“Never would the eye have perceived the sun if it had not first taken the form of the sun; likewise, every person must make themselves beautiful and divine in order to attain the sight of beauty and divinity.”

Plotinus 204 – 249 CE
from Enneads Ἐννεάδες Plotinus / Porphyry

“Every being entering into the ineffable sanctuary of its own nature finds there a symbol of the Father of All.”

Proclus Lycaeus Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος 412 – 485 CE
"The most influential Ancient Greek philosopher you've never heard of"

Themes: Sacred World

“Deluded, we call pearls broken piece of pottery; awakened we see them as pearls.”

Dazu Huike 487 – 593 CE via Shan Dao
(Dz Huk)

Themes: Sacred World

25. The Mother of All Things

“Look within! The secret is inside you.”

Huineng 惠能 638 – 713 CE
(Huìnéng, Enō)
The Sutra of Hui Neng

Themes: Sacred World

33. Know Yourself

“Why do I live among the green mountains?
I laugh and answer not, my soul is serene;
It dwells in another heaven and earth belonging to no man.
The peach trees are in flower and the water flow on.”

Li Bai 李白 701 – 762 CE
(Li Bo)

“When the mind is polluted it is ordinary mind. When the mind is unpolluted then it is sacred.”

Hui Hai 大珠慧海 788 – 831 CE
from Essential Gate for Entry Into Sudden Enlightenment (Tun-wu ju dao yao-men)

Themes: Sacred World

“Above, below, and around you, all is spontaneously existing, for there is nowhere which is outside the Buddha-Mind.”

Huangbo Xiyun 黄檗希运 1
(Huangbo Xiyun, Huángbò Xīyùn, Obaku)
from Zen Teachings of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind, John Blofeld translation

Themes: Sacred World

“When I realized that Buddha is my original nature, the Buddha became the experience of every moment.”

Bhikṣanapa བྷི་ཀྵ་ན་པ། 940 CE –
("Siddha Two-Teeth")
Mahasiddha #61

Themes: Sacred World

“What need have I for gold? The whole world is gold for me!”

Nāropā 955 – 1040 CE via Chogyam Trungpa

“Each man his own song; each bird, its own voice.”

Gesar of Ling གེ་སར་རྒྱལ་པོ། 1 via Robin Kornman
from Gesar of Ling Epic

Themes: Sacred World

“Your mind is like a magical gem manifesting all that is”

Mekopa མེ་ཀོ་པ། 1050 CE – via Keith Dowman
("Guru Dread-Stare")
Mahasiddha #43

“Regard everyone you meet as the Buddha.”

Gampopa སྒམ་པོ་པ། 1079 – 1153 CE via Herbert Guenther
(Sönam Rinchen, Dakpo Rinpoche)
from Jewel Ornament of Liberation

Themes: Sacred World

25. The Mother of All Things

“My king is the naturally radiant nature of being who defeats the hostile powers of duality—innate, spontaneously arising awareness.”

Jayānanda ཛ་ཡཱ་ནནྡ།། 1 via Keith Dowman, Shan Dao
("Crow Master")
Mahasiddha #58

“Moving straight ahead, totally let go... respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky.”

Hóngzhì Zhēngjué 宏智正覺 1091 – 1157 CE via Dan Leighton
(Shōgaku)
from Cultivating the Emplty Field

“The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.”

Hildegard of Bingen 1098 – 1179 CE

Themes: Sacred World

62. Basic Goodness

“A fine day under the blue sky! Don't foolishly look here and there.
If you still ask, 'What is Buddha?' It is like pleading your innocence while clutching stolen goods.”

Mumon Ekai 無門慧開 1183 – 1260 CE via Sumiko Kudo
(Wumen Huikai)
Pioneering pathfinder to the Gateless Gate

from Mumonkan

“When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”

Rumi مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد بلخی 1207 – 1283 CE
(Rumi Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)
from Masnavi مثنوي معنوي‎‎) "Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning”

Themes: Sacred World

5. Christmas Trees

“Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere -- in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church. If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you.”

Meister Eckhart 1260 – 1328 CE
(Eckhart von Hochheim)

Themes: Sacred World

73. Heaven’s Net

“Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration.”

Yoshida Kenkō 兼好 1284 – 1350 CE
Inspiration of self-reinvention
from Harvest of Leisure

“My God is the green tide in the spring leaves, the redness of cherries high in the air, the song of birds in summer branches, the sunrise on a winter's morning, the name of everything we don't understand...”

William of Ockham 1287 – 1347 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Amazed at the heights of mountains, the ocean’s wideness, the power of nature, and the distance of stars; ourselves we consider not.”

Petrarch 1304 – 1374 CE

33. Know Yourself

“Days and dates are pristine; months, years, and eons are pristine. One thing is pristine; everything is pristine. The spiritual and the nonspiritual are pristine.”

Longchenpa ཀློང་ཆེན་རབ་འབྱམས་པ། 1308 – 1364 CE via Richard Barron
(Longchen Rabjampa, Drimé Özer)
from The Basic Space of Phenomena

Themes: Sacred World

“Meditate focusing your attention on the pure radiant light. Contemplate the deities of the vast Mandalas in which they (and you) reside. Feel the pride of being divine like them.”

Tsongkhapa ཙོང་ཁ་པ། 1357 – 1419 CE via Shan Dao
(Zongkapa Lobsang Zhaba, "the Man from Onion Valley")

“Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.”

Teresa of Avila 1515 – 1582 CE
from Way of Perfection

6. The Source

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”

Baruch Spinoza 1632 – 1677 CE

33. Know Yourself

“Oh, how splendid! The sunlight on the young, green leaves”

Matsuo Bashō 松尾 芭蕉 1644 – 1694 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Taking hold of the not-thought that lies in thoughts, in their every act they hear the voice of Truth… As the Truth reveals itself in its eternal tranquility, this very earth is the Lotus-Land of Purity, and this body is the body of the Buddha.”

Hakuin Ekaku 白隠 慧鶴 1686 – 1769 CE

51. Mysterious Goodness

“To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.”

William Blake 1757 – 1827 CE

32. Uncontrived Awareness

“And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834 CE
from Kubla Khan

Themes: Sacred World

72. Helpful Fear

“Educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.”

Novalis 1772 – 1831 CE

45. Complete Perfection

“Everything that we experience is a communication… the revelation of spirit.”

Novalis 1772 – 1831 CE

Themes: Sacred World

16. Returning to the Root, Meditation

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”

Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels , not of trade, but of thought.”

Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862 CE
Father of environmentalism and America's first yogi

“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892 CE
Premier "poet of democracy" and model for Dracula

Themes: Sacred World
“Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it.”

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский 1821 – 1881 CE
from Brothers Karamatzov

“Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in all things.”

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский 1821 – 1881 CE via Constance Garnett
from Brothers Karamatzov

Themes: Sacred World

“Love both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. and you will perceive the mystery of God in all until you come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.”

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский 1821 – 1881 CE
from Brothers Karamatzov

“Inebriate of air – am I – and Debauchee of Dew.”

Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886 CE

Themes: Sacred World

3. Weak Wishes, Strong Bones

“I have seen a radiance upon the face of those who were worshiping the divine either in art or nature—in picture or statue—in field or cloud or sea—in man, woman, or child—but mention the word divinity, and our sense of the divine is clouded.”

Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902 CE
Iconoclastic philosopher, artist, composer, author, and evolutionary theorist
from Erewhon

Themes: Sacred World

“The buildings, the temple and all vanished leaving no trace; instead there was limitless, infinite, shining ocean of consciousness or spirit. As far as the eye could see, its billows were rushing toward me from all sides”

Ramakrishna 1836 – 1886 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Looking up at the sky, I saw a beautiful, somber thundercloud, a flight of snow-white cranes flew over-head in front of it. It created such a beautiful contrast that... lost to outward sense, I fell down, and the puffed rice was scattered in all directions. Some people found me and carried me home”

Ramakrishna 1836 – 1886 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“I have seen thoughts rising on my horizon, the like of which I have never seen before... crying tears of joy... Six thousand feet above men and Time... Calm and peace spread over the mountains and the forests.”

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love.”

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941 CE

54. Planting Well

“The Holy Land is everywhere.”

Black Elk 1863 – 1950 CE
(Heȟáka Sápa)

Themes: Sacred World

14. Finding and Following the Formless Form

“To keep beauty in its place is to make all things beautiful.”

Santayana, George 1863 – 1952 CE
(Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás)
Powerfully influential, true-to-himself philosopher/poet
from The Life of Reason (1905)

“All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.”

Black Elk 1863 – 1950 CE
(Heȟáka Sápa)

Themes: Sacred World

25. The Mother of All Things

“To the one who knows how to look and feel, every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment.”

Alexandra David-Néel 1868 – 1969 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need — this life is hell.”

W. E. B. Du Bois 1868 – 1963 CE

“the great painters initiate us into a knowledge and love of the external world… our eyes are opened… their charm and wisdom coats our most modest moments by initiating us into the life of still life.”

Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922 CE
Apostle of Ordinary Mind
from Letter to an editor

Themes: Sacred World

“A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.”

Albert Schweitzer 1875 – 1965 CE

“Hold fast the time! Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute!... Hold every moment sacred. Give each clarity and meaning, each the weight of thine awareness, each its true and due fulfillment.”

Thomas Mann 1875 – 1955 CE
Deep, psychologically insightful author
from The Beloved Returns (1939)

“I daily weigh up my whole life and continue in the fiery brilliance of a sacred world far higher than the suicidal ashes of rationality.”

Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE via Shan Dao
Insightful shamanistic scientist
from Red Book, Liber Novus

“I felt that I had passed through the valley of diamonds, but I could convince no one—not even myself, when I looked at them more closely—that the specimens I had brought back were not mere pieces of gravel.”

Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE via Richard and Clara Winston
Insightful shamanistic scientist
from Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Themes: Sacred World

“It is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”

Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962 CE via Hilda Rosner
from Siddhartha

Themes: Sacred World Hate

“God is the Eternal Thou”

Martin Buber מרטין בובר‎‎ 1878 – 1965 CE

Themes: God Sacred World

“By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.”

Teilhard de Chardin 1881 – 1955 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“These are my two drops of rain
Waiting on the window-pane…
All the best and all the worst
Comes from which of them is first…
John is there, and John has won!
Look! I told you! Here's the sun!”

A.A. Milne 1882 – 1956 CE
(Alan Alexander Milne)
from Waiting At The Window

76. The Soft and Flexible

“her look, passing through all that time and that emotion, reached him doubtfully; settled on him tearfully; and rose and fluttered away, as a bird touches a branch and rise and flutters away. Quote simply she wiped her eyes.”

Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941 CE
from Mrs. Dalloway

Themes: Sacred World

“In the particular is contained the universal.”

James Joyce 1882 – 1941 CE

34. An Unmoored Boat

“Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face... eternity gazing at itself in a mirror... you are eternity and you are the mirror.”

Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931 CE
from The Prophet

“I become a child again to enable myself to view the world always for the first time with virgin eyes... This is what keeps my mind untouched by wastage, keeps it from withering and running dry.”

Nikos Kazantzakis 1883 – 1957 CE
from Report to Greco

Themes: Sacred World

“the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”

Nikos Kazantzakis 1883 – 1957 CE
from Zorba the Greek

Themes: Sacred World

25. The Mother of All Things

“Without being aware of it, we carry omnipotence within us... Every living thing is a workshop where God, in hiding, processes and transubstantiates clay. This is why trees flower and fruit, why animals multiply, why the monkey managed to exceed its destiny and stand upright on its two feet.”

Nikos Kazantzakis 1883 – 1957 CE
from Report to Greco

Themes: Sacred World

“Mankind's struggle is truly an uninterrupted sacrament.”

Nikos Kazantzakis 1883 – 1957 CE
from Report to Greco

Themes: Sacred World

“God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.”

Nikos Kazantzakis 1883 – 1957 CE

Themes: Sacred World God

67. Three Treasures

“In all things I saw the passion of life for growth and greatness, the drama of everlasting creation.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Transition

Themes: Sacred World

“in the presence of a mother tending her child, or of a genius giving order to chaos, meaning to matter, nobility to form or thought, we feel as close as we shall ever be to the life and mind and law that constitute the unintelligible intelligence of the world.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Renaissance

Themes: Sacred World

“That is what you are, that is what I am, that is what everything in the universe is – beginningless, endless life, infinite, boundless, eternal Life.”

Ruth Fuller Sasaki 1892 – 1967 CE

“Like Confucius of old, I am absorbed in the wonder of earth, and the life upon it, and I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life... a faith in the human heart and its power to grow toward the light, I find here reason and cause enough for hope and confidence in the future of mankind.”

Pearl Buck 1892 – 1973 CE
from This I Believe (1951)

Themes: Sacred World

“All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.”

Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE
from Crome Yellow (1921)

Themes: Sacred World

34. An Unmoored Boat

“if you are susceptible to good poetry, your heart may skip a beat or you may grow cold and numb... He will show you a pebble, an iceman, a book agent and unravel for you the inner mystery and beauty of pulsating life beneath the surface of our everyday existence.”

Lín Yǔtáng 林語堂 1895 – 1976 CE
from On the Wisdom of America, 1950

Themes: Sacred World

“Let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896 – 1940 CE
Prototype of "Jazz Age" exuberance
from The Jazz Age

“The feeling of awe and sense of wonder arises from the recognition of the deep mystery that surrounds us everywhere, and this feeling deepens as our knowledge grows.”

Anagarika​ (Lama) Govinda 1898 – 1985 CE
(Ernst Hoffmann)
Pioneer of Tibetan Buddhism to the West

“The divine is inherent in the universe, and as humans are not different from it, the divine is inherent in them as well.”

Anagarika​ (Lama) Govinda 1898 – 1985 CE
(Ernst Hoffmann)
Pioneer of Tibetan Buddhism to the West

from Inner Structure of the I Ching

Themes: Sacred World

“He talks to the plants and they answer him. He listens to the voices of all those who move upon the earth, the animals. He is as one with them. From all living beings, something flows into him all the time, and something flows from him.”

John Fire Lame Deer 1903 – 1976 CE via Richard Erdoes
from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions

51. Mysterious Goodness

“For those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as sacred world.”

Mircea Eliade 1907 – 1986 CE via Shan Dao

Themes: Sacred World

“nature may appear to move from simple to complex; it may appear to progress and advance from imperfection toward perfection. This, at any rate, is what Darwin's theory of evolution implies. But of course, such is not the true state of nature... Nature is fundamentally perfect. Both spiritually and materially, nature is replete with the greatest possible wealth. It is a paradise where joy and contentment reign.”

Masanobu Fukuoka 福岡 正信 1913 – 2008 CE
from Road Back to Nature

“still struggling against the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyond, and to discover, discover before dying, discover at last in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but forever.”

Albert Camus 1913 – 1960 CE
from The First Man​ (1994)

Themes: Sacred World

“Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.”

Lewis Thomas 1913 – 1993 CE
Gestaltist of science and art
from Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

Themes: Sacred World

“all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.”

J. D. Salinger 1919 – 2010 CE
from Raise High the Roof Beams, Seymour an Introduction

“We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery.”

Huston Smith 1919 – 2016 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Jesus—the best, the smartest, the most loving, the least sentimental, the most unimitative master— realized there is no separation from God... who in the Bible besides Jesus knew—knew—that we're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look?”

J. D. Salinger 1919 – 2010 CE
from Franny and Zooey

Themes: Sacred World

“Without attention, the human sense of wonder and the holy will stir occasionally, but to become a steady flame it must be tended”

Huston Smith 1919 – 2016 CE
from World's Religions

“Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!”

Allen Ginsberg 1926 – 1997 CE

Themes: Sacred World

25. The Mother of All Things

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”

Thích Nhất Hạnh tʰǐk ɲɜ̌t hɐ̂ʔɲ 1926 CE –

Themes: Sacred World

“But these are all thoughts, feelings, labels… what is the real thing? — this instant of not expecting anything!”

Toni Packer 1927 – 2013 CE
A Zen teacher minus the 'Zen' and minus the 'teacher.’

Themes: Sacred World

48. Unlearning

“Our mind is like a clear glass of water. If we put salt into water, it becomes salt water; sugar, it becomes sugar water, shit, it becomes shit water. But originally the water is clear.”

Seungsahn 숭산행원대선사 1927 – 2004 CE
(Soen Sa Nim)

78. Water

“All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe.”

Yayoi Kusama 草間 彌生 1929 CE –

“A sudden flash of lightening fills the whole kitchen with onion sprouts”

Gesshin Myoko Roshi 1931 – 1999 CE
Moon heart miraculous light
from A Sudden Flash of Lightening: Words Out of Silence

Themes: Sacred World

“Poets feel that we are cut off from meaning by a thick, lead wall, and that sometimes for no reason we can understand the wall seems to vanish and we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite interestingness of things.”

Colin Wilson 1931 – 2013 CE
from The Occult

“America is the fact, the symbol and the promise of a new beginning. And in human life, this possibility is among the most sacred aspects of existence.”

Jacob Needleman 1934 CE –
American religious scholar, historian, philosopher, and author
from American Soul

Themes: Sacred World

“There's a blaze of light in every word. It doesn't matter which you heard, the holy or the broken hallelujah”

Leonard Cohen 1934 – 2016 CE
from Hallelujah

Themes: Sacred World

“One can appreciate and celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!”

Pema Chödrön 1936 CE –
(Deirdre Blomfield-Brown)
First American Vajrayana nun

35. The Power of Goodness

“the only way to grow up and mature further is through further openness to the world… this is realization of the sacredness of the universe and of yourself.”

Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Illusion's Game

Themes: Sacred World

25. The Mother of All Things

“When you experience total sacred outlook... the forms you see in the outer world are seen as the heavenly realm of the deities; speech is experienced as mantra; and the psychology of the world is experienced as awakened clarity.”

Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE via Judith Lief, editor
from Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

Themes: Sacred World

“You special, miraculous, unrepeatable, fragile, fearful, tender, lost, sparkling ruby emerald jewel, rainbow splendor person.”

Joan Baez 1941 CE –

“The Iliad of Homer... one of the most deeply religious books ever composed... is an enduring statement of the living tradition of polytheism. Immortal and powerful, the gods of Homer are nonetheless strikingly human in their greed, arrogance, jealously, and promiscuity. However, far from being simplistic or childish, the gods of Homer are testimony to a profound effort to understand the meaning of life.”

J. Rufus Fears 1945 – 2012 CE
from Books That Made History

“Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, praise for them springing fresh from the world”

Cat Stevens 1948 CE –
(Steven Demetre Georgiou, Yusuf Islam)

Themes: Sacred World

“We fail to see 99% of the glories of nature, for to do so would require vision that is simultaneously telescopic and microscopic.”

Amy Tan 1952 CE –
Rock and roll singer, bartender, and insightfully talented author
from Saving Fish From Drowning

Themes: Sacred World

“the excruciating ache of the awakening love for wisdom… the sacred origin not just of religion but also everything else, of science, technology, education, law, medicine, logic architecture, ordinary daily life”

Peter Kingsley 1953 CE –
from A Story Waiting to Pierce You

“Every once in a while, I find myself in the presence of purity—purity of spirit and love—and I always cry. It always just reaches in and grabs me.”

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011 CE

Themes: Sacred World

“Each would understand Mahavira in their own language. The lion would sit down with lamb, and the king with the beggar. Each would respect the other. For they could see a living soul, and not just a body, in their neighbor.”

Manoj Jain 1963 CE –

Themes: Sacred World

“If we try to complicate our lives, developing clever plans and ambitions, we lose sight of the way in which small, insignificant things actually hold the key to what we seek.”

Yi-Ping Ong 1978 CE –
from Tao Te Ching - Introduction and Notes