We're going on a road trip.
     Just you, me, the highway and the radio.

The blue sky, the black roads, and windows down.
     We'll talk about everything and nothing.

And we'll sing our hearts out,
     And we'll make memories we'll never forget!

Just you and me.

Life is a play
     That does not 
          Allow trials.

Therefore, laugh,
     Sing, dance, cry
          and live intensely every moment of your life.

Before the curtain
     Goes down, and,
         The play ends without applause.

Like you,
     I love love.
Life, the sweet smell
     Of things, the sky,
          Blue landscape of January days.

And, I laugh through eyes
     That have know the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful,
     And that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

My veins do not end in me,
     But in the unanimous blood
          Of those who struggle for life.

Love,
     Little things,
          Landscape and bread.

The poetry of everyone.

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

-- Rumi

After rain, after many days without rain,
It stays cool, private and cleansed, beneath the trees.

The dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground.

Where it will disappear — but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share.

The white threads of the grasses, and the moss cushion, too
A few drops, round as pearls, captured find a mole’s tunnel.

Soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years, 
Will feel themselves being touched.

There is no spiritual practice more profound than being kind to one's family, neighbors,
the cashier at the grocery store – 
an unexpected visitor - a stray cat or dog –
or any other of the usually ‘irrelevant’ and ‘invisible’ beings who may cross our paths
in the course of a normal day. 

Certainly there are spiritual mysteries beyond description to explore, 
but as we mature, it becomes clear
that those special experiences are only meaningful 
when they arise from and return to
a life of ordinary kindness.

~ Bo Lozoff

Our breath is like a bridge connecting our bodies and our minds. In our daily lives, our bodies may be in one place and our minds somewhere else – in the past or in the future. This is called a state of distraction. The breath is a connection between the mind and the body. 

When you begin to breath in and out mindfully, your body will come back to your mind, and your mind will go back to your body. You will be able to realize the oneness of body and mind and become fully present in your body. You will be able to realize the oneness of body and mind and become fully present and alive in the here and the now. 

You will be in a position to touch life deeply in the moment. This is not difficult. Everyone can do it.

By Thich Nhat Hanh From “Be here where you are”

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we do not have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Esthetic pleasure derives pleasure in contemplating something. This pleasure could be sensory, like the enjoyment one derives from looking at a painting or listening to music. Or it could be intellectual, like the pleasure of reading the latest Eckart Tolle. In both cases, pleasure in contemplation must be distinguished from wanting an object for other uses.

Immanuel Kant in the 18th century was among the first to understand this. He used the example of a palace. You might long to live in it, or you might hate it for its extravagance and want to destroy it. But both of these responses are distinct from the pleasure or displeasure derived from merely looking at it. Only the latter pleasure counts as aesthetic.

Discussing sexual selection, Charles Darwin wrote: ‘When we behold a male bird elaborately displaying his graceful plumes or splendid colours before the female … it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner.’

Assuming that he really means beauty, and not sexual attractiveness, this is a mistake. It confuses sexual desire with aesthetic admiration. According to Darwin’s own theory, when a female looks at a male that way, she is not getting pleasure from looking at him for the sake of looking at him; rather, she is driven to mate with him. Darwin wrongly equates the lustful gaze with simple looking. Kant’s point was that aesthetic appreciation is disinterested. It is pleasure just in looking.