It wasn’t until I read “The Wisdom Way of Knowing,” by Cynthia Bourgeault, an Episcopal priest, that I began to wonder if something was getting lost in our culture’s emphasis on time management. In the book, Ms. Bourgeault describes her rationale for how she organized a retreat for participants seeking to deepen their spirituality: “On Eagle Island... See more
Devotion is desire transmuted across time into love. It is an elevation of attention; a singleness of purpose, but in service to something greater than ourselves.
There are infinite quotidian human experiences ripe for interpreting: putting off housework, caring about who I sit next to at a dinner party, struggling to get dressed. They stack up every day. I’m particularly fond of using them to draw ungenerous conclusions: I’m shallow, selfish, lazy, dishonest. I’ve trained myself away from defending my goodn... See more
Boredom is just “What’s the use?” in disguise. And “What’s the use?” is fear, and fear means you are secretly in despair. So put your fears on the page.
Here are 4 tips on how to lock yourself into a cage and have fun :
1. Make variations : Stick with something that you can iterate and vary. Think of basketball: There is only one goal, yet there are countless ways to achieve it.
2. Limit your time : This lets you know when you are done .
Pierre Bezukhov: I want to discover... everything! I want to discover why I know what's right and still do what's wrong. I want to discover what happiness is, and what value there is in suffering. I want to discover why men go to war, and what they really say deep in their hearts when
"In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life."