Rediscovering Life: Awaken to Reality

The great Chinese sage Tranxu puts it marvelously: “When the archer shoots for nothing, he has all his skill. When he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. When he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind. He’s out of his mind. He sees two targets. His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winnin

You can keep the rest—what’s the use of it? Tell me, what’s the use of moving around in an airplane with a heart that is full of misery and emptiness? Tell me. I’d rather live on the ground in a jungle and be blissfully happy and dancing all day. Wouldn’t you? Maybe you wouldn’t. I don’t know.

Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord.

So, no one joins in the human enterprise of human dreams and visions and goals so marvelously and so creatively as the person who is unattached. Unfortunately, we’ve come to associate nonattachment with not caring, with not enjoying, with asceticism. No, I’m not talking about that at all. You’ll see this as we go on.

“For peace of heart, resign as general manager of the universe.” I’m not the general manager; I do what I can. I plunge in, and the result is left to God, to life, to destiny.

Nothing in this entire world has the power to upset you. Nothing. As a matter of fact, nothing has ever upset you. Nobody has ever hurt you. You stupidly hurt yourself.

This has been stamped into you. You’ve been programmed with this. You’ve been conditioned this way. But this is what you’ve got to understand. You see, you don’t have to do anything for enlightenment. You don’t have to do anything for liberation and for spirituality. All you have to do is see something, understand something. If you would understand

Said the jilted lover, “I have burned my fingers once. I shall never fall in love again.” Said the master, “You are like the cat, who having burned itself from sitting on a stove, refused to sit again.”

That could be a parable. It’s tragic, it’s painful. I think back on my own life and I think, Why did I waste it? I wasted it. And all kinds of wonderful things, believe me—pastoral ministries, theological enterprises, liturgical services, etc., etc., etc. The more occupied we are in the things of God, the more likely we priests are to forget what G