“Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha.”

–Ajahn Chah, meditation master, Wat Pa pong, Thailand

“We do not believe that people are good because we see that they are good, but by believing that people are good we eliminate our own fear and thus we can intimately associate with them.  To believe in the compassionate power of the Supreme Being which we cannot see is a discipline in order to believe in the invisible good in others.

“Civilization has nothing to do with having electric lights, airplanes, or manufacturing atomic bombs.  it has nothing to do with killing human beings, destroying things or waging war.  Civilization is to hold one another in mutual affection and respect.”

–Most Venerable Nichidatsu Fujii

“The masses have their heads on backwards.  If you want to get things right, first look at how they think and behave, and consider going the opposite way.”

–Lama Drom Tonpa, eleventh century

(Source:  Living Religions by Mary Pat Fisher)