No one is perfect – that’s why pencils have erasers. — Wolfgang Riebe

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. — Zig Ziglar

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. — William James

You’re off to great places, today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way. — Dr. Seuss

You always pass failure on the way to success. — Mickey Rooney

Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve done before. — Bonnie Blair Continue reading →

We all know the old adage: Patience is a virtue. But it’s true! Patience can help us achieve our goals, maintain a more positive outlook on life, and make us less reactive, which in turn will make us less prone to bad decisions. Stress, regret, and anger don’t help anything. So when you’re facing an uncertain future, a negative event, or something scary, take a minute. Don’t do anything. Just sit a spell. — Country Living

Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot; Whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not. — Unknown

Jendhamuni shoveling the snow on December 5, 2020

• Learning patience can be a difficult experience, but once conquered, you will find life is easier. —  Catherine Pulsifer
• Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting. — Unknown
• Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. — John Quincy Adams

Jendhamuni shoveling the snow on December 5, 2020

We often hear of bad weather, but in reality no weather is bad. It is all delightful, though in different ways. Some weather may be bad for farmers or crops, but for man all kinds are good. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating. – John Lubbock

The weather behaved itself. In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush. – T.H. White

Every day we’re given a choice: We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us . . . if we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place. — Elizabeth Lesser

Do not fail
to learn from
The pure voice of an
Ever-flowing mountain stream
Splashing over the rocks.

— Morihei Ueshiba

Jendhamuni at the summit of Mt. Wachusett on a rainy and foggy day on November 26, 2020.

If you realized just how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.

• Your mind is a powerful thing. When you fill it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change.
• Your thoughts shape your vision. You see what you choose to see.
• What consumes your mind, controls your life.

— Anonymous

It doesn’t matter where you came from. All that matters is where you are going.  — Brian Tracy

Khmer Times photo

The reason why rivers and seas are able to be lords over a hundred mountain streams, is that they know how to keep below them. That is why they are able to reign over all the mountain streams.
— Laozi

Jendhamuni at the Wachusett Mountain on a rainy and foggy day on November 26, 2020.

Metta can accurately be compared with a warm and radiant fire burning in your heart. You cannot expect to light the fire of loving-kindness by starting with a difficult object, no more than you can expect to light a campfire by striking a match under a thick log. So do not begin metta meditation by trying to spread metta to yourself or to an enemy. Instead begin by spreading loving-kindness to something that is easy to ignite with loving-kindness, or what I like to call kindfulness. Kindfulness enables you to embrace other beings—as well as yourself—just as they and you are.

In metta meditation you focus your attention on the feeling of loving-kindness, developing that delightful emotion until it fills the whole mind. The way this is achieved can be compared to the way you light a campfire. You start kindfulness with paper or anything else that is easy to light. Then you add kindling, small twigs, or strips of wood. When the kindling is on fire you add thicker pieces of wood, and after a time the thick logs. Once the fire is roaring and very hot, you can even put on wet and sappy logs and they are soon alight.

A Warm Fire in Your Heart — Ajahn Brahm

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Jendhamuni at the summit of the Wachusett Mountain on a rainy and foggy day on November 26, 2020.

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless. — G.K. Chesterton