Faith

RIC_4124, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


In Buddhism, faith means confidence in our and others' abilities
to wake up to our deepest capacity of loving and understanding.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

Seeing

RIC_4522, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

On a clear day

I can see

so far

into

myself.

Richard C. Choe, Seeing

What Matters

RIC_4301, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

What matters is what we bear away within us:

the story, the song of our living.

Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song

Storytelling

RIC_4237, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     If we want to live at peace ourselves, we need to
     tell our stories.

       Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse

A Person

RIC_4312, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The Earth is the centre of the universe

The house is the centre of the earth

The family is the centre of the house

The person is the centre of the family.

Basque Song

You

RIC_4255
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

History is already different because you are here.
The world has already been changed because you showed up.

Larry Ward

Thich Nhat Hanh, Together We Are One: Honouring Our Diversity, Celebrating Our Connection

Identity

RIC_4302
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

One can't talk about a sense of place without acknowledging where one comes from.

Joseph Boyden, From Mushkegowuk to New Orleans: A Mixed Blood Highway

Empathy

RCC_2795
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

George Eliot, Middlemarch

… what those lines suggest is that if we had complete empathy, if we could understand how people are from the inside, we would be capable of loving them as God loved them.

Zadie Smith, In Conversation with Zadie Smith by Eleanor Wachtel

Balance

RIC_4194
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

You cannot balance one thing; you balance a diversity of things. And diversity is the engine of the evolution of living things, including living civilizations.

Chinua Achebe, Home and Exile

Seeing well

RCC_2973
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

If you want to see well, you must not stand in one place. ... And this is the way I think the world's stories should be told – from many different perspectives.

Chinua Achebe

Seeing

RIC_4779
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Wherever you go, what matters less is what you are looking at, but how you have committed to see.

Youngme Moon, Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd

One chance in life

RIC_4304
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

When we dismiss or deny the hopes of others we forget that they, like us, have only one chance in this life.

Alexander McCall Smith, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Healing

RCC_2929
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

... the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.

Alice Walker, Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning

Dreams of Hope

RIC_4611
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

I know men in exile feed on dreams of hope.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon

Seeing the invisible

RIC_4777
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.

Frank Gaines

All your heart

RIC_4426
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

Confucius

Where we came from

RIC_4277
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Unless we understand and cultivate what each of us had inherited from wherever we came from, we could not really give the world back everything it needed to find in us.

Joan Chittister