Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds singing sutras to this suffering world. I heard them too, this morning, which must mean, since we will always have a suffering world, we must also always have a song.
~ David Budbill, "What Issa Heard" in MOMENT TO MOMENT
Enjoying the Friends of Silence monthly newsletter? Now you can sign up to receive a free daily quote in your inbox each morning taken from more than 39 years of 422 newsletters and 5,600 quotes on silence and the contemplative path.
These are the three steps of truth. We climb to the first by the toil of humility, to the second by the deep feelings of compassion, and to the third by the ecstasy of contemplation. On the first step we experience the severity of truth, on the second its tenderness, on the third its purity. Reason brings us to the first as we judge ourselves; compassion brings us to the second when we have mercy on others; on the third the purity of truth sweeps us up to the sight of things invisible.
~ from BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX ed. by M. Basil Pennington