T H E
YO U ARE H O LD ING SCRIPTU RE
IN YO U R H AND S .

BOOK
Scripture created for today.

Scripture intended not to replace other

holy books but to offer alongside them
its own poignant witness.

Scripture written not by prophet or saint, mystic

O F
or messiah, guru or god, but by the world.

Scripture nearly 3,000 verses long, woven

T H E
from quotations from around the globe.

Scripture whose creator is unknown

WORLD
and whose origins remain a mystery.

Scripture that first appeared on the

Internet, only to be suppressed.






















 




 


 R EAD IT . 



T EST IT . ! THE
T RANSCEND
FO R YO U R O W N SAKE .
IT .





 


BOOK OF
THE
FO R TH E W O RLD ’ S .

PHYLLIS COLE-DAI is a writer and composer living in Brookings,

a contemporary scripture



WORLD
South Dakota. With graduate degrees in English and theology,
a contemporary scripture
she has published a half-dozen books and recorded several 


 

collections of original music for solo piano and children.

WWW.PHYLLISCOLEDAI.COM

 Edited and with an introduction by
Phyllis Cole-Dai
 BOOK
THE
OF
THE

WORLD
 BOOK
THE OF
THE

WORLD
a contemporary scripture

Edited and with an introduction by

Phyllis Cole-Dai
 Copyright © 2008 by Phyllis Cole-Dai

The book of the world : a contemporary scripture / edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai.

ISBN 978-0-615-24350-4

This book is printed on

recycled (100% Post-Consumer Waste) acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America by
McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., Saline, MI 48716.

Art credits
Cover art photographs:
© Oleksandr Svitlovskyi | Dreamstime.com
© Thorir aron Stefansson | Dreamstime.com
Line art in the text:
© Bora Ucak | Dreamstime.com

To order books or to correspond:

phyllis@phylliscoledai.com
www.phylliscoledai.com
Phyllis Cole-Dai
712 6th St.
Brookings, SD 57006
U.S.A.
 C O N T E N T S

Introduction i
To the Unknown Author xv

T H E B O O K O F T H E W O R L D

“I have to tell you this, whoever you are” 1

WHAT WE NEED IS HERE 2

EARTH IS OUR ONLY HOME 3
“Who do you say that I am?” 5
I DO NOT KNOW ITS NAME 6
“Why am I hiding behind other people’s words?” 8
WHAT IS TRUTH ? 9
“They call me a terrorist” 13
THE WHOLE WORLD IS KIN 14
“One day, somehow, someone ‘ picked me out’” 17
ALL THINGS CHANGE 18
“I was sitting in the park and three unknown people came” 20
WE MUST STAY CLOSE TO THE GROUND 22
WE ARE THE CARETAKERS OF THIS PLANET 23
“When they put me in this cell, that’s when I knew it was for real” 29
WE BELONG TO THE UNIVERSE 31
“I can’t remember how old I was, but I used to stand in front of the mirror” 33
WE BECOME WHO WE ARE 34
“I am haunted by waters” 36
THE ONLY JOURNEY IS THE ONE WITHIN 37
“Prison is no fairy-tale world” 39
DARE YOUR YES 40
“In prison you will do anything to keep your mind occupied” 42
BEGIN BY DESCENDING 43
“I have a secret” 45
RIGHT HERE IS PARADISE 46
TODAY IS THE SEED TIME 48
“The prison guards are capable of committing daily atrocities and obscenities” 49
THIS MOMENT IS YOUR LIFE 50
“I went on a hunger strike demanding a defense lawyer” 53
FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST 54
“If a wall, long and thick, a high wall, should rise in front of you . . .” 56
COURAGE IS A MUSCLE 57
“I was five and lying in high grass” 59
THE THORNBUSH MUST CATCH FIRE 60
IN THE DARKEST TIME 63
“It broke me, my children dying” 66
ALL GO 67
HAVE YOUR BLOOMING 70
“I know it’s not the kind of thing you ought to say” 72
GRATITUDE , NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS 73
A FULL HEART HAS ROOM FOR EVERYTHING 75
“I believe in the supreme value of knowing we are going to die” 77
A BANQUET OF CONSEQUENCES 78
YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY 79
“I dream of an older woman holding a ball of clay” 81
HAVE A VISION 82
“Did you come back last night?” 84
GO THROUGH THE DOOR 85
WE WILL HAVE OUR REVOLUTION 86
“One night, something happened” 89
LOVE AND COMPASSION ARE NECESSITIES 91
“This is my country” 97
WE ARE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD 98
OUR NEIGHBOR’S FACE 100
FAULTS ARE THICK WHERE LOVE IS THIN 101

“During my time in prison I have had medical problems” 102

WHO IS THE ENEMY ? 103
“I would like to thank the interrogator and all of his assistants” 105
SUBVERT ANGER WITH FORGIVENESS 106
“Maybe I scare you” 109
FORGIVE YOUR OWN MISTAKES 110
“My father was the first to introduce me to raw and stupid hatred” 112
NO ONE IS BORN HATING 113
“Sometimes I feel certain that I’m going mad” 115
PREJUDICE SEES WHAT IT PLEASES 116
UNTIL DIFFERENCE MAKES NO DIFFERENCE 117
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound . . .” 119
VIOLENCE IS NOT THE WAY 120
TERRORISM IS NOT THE WAY 122
“Another day is here and my hands are still covered with a mantle of stoic ink” 125
WAR IS TERRORISM , MAGNIFIED 126
“No matter what situation we are in, we can find some level of connection with anybody” 131
IT IS POSSIBLE TO LIVE IN PEACE 132
“Words! They are alive; cut them and they bleed” 137
THE WEAPON OF NONVIOLENCE 139
“Spare me your indifference” 143
THE DISEASE OF APATHY AND INDIFFERENCE 144
THE WAY OF GIVING 146
“Sometimes I cannot bear the world” 147
EACH CHILD A MORNING STAR 148
“I muse this blessed morning, sad in solitude yet somehow not alone” 151
WHERE IS EVERYBODY ? 152
WE MUST PRACTICE FREEDOM 155
“I understand it now” 157
SIMPLIFY , SIMPLIFY 158
“Pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention” 161
EVERYTHING IS A GIFT 162
THE HUMAN BODY IS SACRED 163
“When I was little, I lived by a stream” 165
THE SOUL IS HERE FOR ITS OWN JOY 166
“I write these words, quickly repeat them softly to myself” 171
JOY IS THE LITTLE BIRD WE ALL WANT
TO CATCH 172

“A troubling dream last night” 174

SEND IN THE CLOWNS 175
“Is this treatise of mine itself nothing but a kind of game?” 177
PLAY IS THE EXULTATION OF THE POSSIBLE 178
“I’ve been telling you a story” 180
WORK IS LOVE MADE VISIBLE 181
WE CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT WISDOM 183
“I have been blessed with the sweetest and kindest sleep this night” 185
PATIENCE , THE COMPANION OF WISDOM 186
“There are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone” 189
HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS 190
“A voice speaks out of my ear: You are not going to die” 192
LIFE IS AN ANGLE OF VISION 193
“I place my hope on the water in this little boat of language” 195
THE END OF THE WORLD 196
“I have written this book as a gift to the people” 201

Index of Names 205

 INTRODUCTION

The Book of the World first came to my attention when a friend, who wishes
not to be identified, told me something she had heard from one of her close
relatives. This relative, whom I shall call Q, a long-time employee of a ma-
jor Internet portal, had confided in her about a “modern-day holy book that
had been censored from the Web.”
My friend knows me well. With academic training in both folklore
studies and theology, I was, as she anticipated, immediately intrigued.
Suspecting that Q’s story might be, rather than actual fact, a contemporary
legend of a spiritual sort, I went straight to my computer and visited various
Web sites devoted to contemporary folklore, Internet hoaxes, and so on. I
found nothing of relevance.
So I googled the book’s title. First up on my screen, after such entries
as Phone Book of the World and Fake Book of the World’s Favorite Songs, was a
volume entitled The Book of the World, AN ACCOUNT OF ALL REPUBLICS,
EMPIRES, KINGDOMS, AND NATIONS (published 1852). Hardly what I was
looking for.
Further searching yielded no references at all to The Book of the World on
the Internet. Not a single blog entry. Not a single chat-room posting. At
least two explanations for this cyber-silence loomed. Either the book had
never existed, even as a tasty crumb of folklore; or, it had in fact appeared
online, as Q maintained, but for such a short time that it had never gar-
nered any noticeable attention. (At this point, I was giving no credence at all
to Q’s claim of “censorship.”)
I was tempted to let the whole matter drop. But the possibility that The
Book of the World might actually be out there somewhere kept nibbling at me,
especially in the wee hours of the night, and having learned over the years
not to ignore my instincts, I eventually sought through my friend to make
direct contact with Q. After considerable prodding, Q finally agreed to a
private, face-to-face meeting.
 One of the pre-conditions of our meeting was that I would protect Q’s
anonymity. I would not describe Q’s identity in any way so as to be recog-
nized, nor would I divulge the time and place of our encounter. Why all this
need for secrecy? I wondered. In later conversations Q admitted fearing
workplace repercussions as well as “inevitable strife in the family,” if dis-
covered. Beyond this I dare say no more. I will keep the promise made.
As the date of our first meeting approached, I was feeling reasonably
confident about Q’s story. Of course, I was aware that Q might simply be
seeking attention by perpetrating a lie, or a hoax. I was also aware that Q,
more sadly, might be suffering from paranoia; that the existence of The Book
of the World might be nothing more than a sad delusion, a single strand of a
conspiracy theory concocted by an unstable mind. Yet what gave me reason
to hope—ample reason—was the trust I felt in my friend. I had no reason
to doubt her, and she had assured me that she had no reason—no reason at
all—to doubt Q.
So I was not altogether surprised when, from the moment we intro-
duced ourselves, Q appeared quite calm and levelheaded. No sign at all of
paranoia. No hint of deception. Between us, there seemed an almost imme-
diate sense of security and good faith. Nevertheless, it was only after three
cups of tea, and much toying with the teaspoon in the teacup, that Q dis-
pensed with chitchat and started to reveal details about The Book of the
World.
What follows is what I remember most vividly from that first conversa-
tion, an account Q later corroborated, making only minor revisions, while
previewing this manuscript for publication.

The Book of the World, Q said, originally appeared on a Web site in mid-2007.
Readers could view but not download its text, whose author and origins
were unknown. “I loved the book,” Q said. “A modern-day holy book—
scripture really, but not in any orthodox sense. Its words—not the words of
any god. They were the words of the world. They were the voice of the
world.”
I wanted elaboration on this point, but Q, who was obviously warming
to the telling of the story, plunged on before I could ask. “Every morning I
would go online and read a passage from the book,” Q said, “then try to
put it to the test through the rest of my day. It was true inspiration.”
According to Q, who by profession was in a position to know, Internet
traffic to the Book of the World Web site increased from a mere trickle to a
steady flow within just a few days of its appearance. Then, suddenly, the
document vanished. “Disappeared without a trace,” Q added. “I was mysti-
ii
fied. I kept searching for it, hoping it would show up again, maybe on a
different site. It never did. Finally I decided to do a little digging.”
“And—?”
Q leaned in. “From what I could tell,” Q confided, “the domain name
registrar disabled the book’s Web site.”
Admittedly, I am not very savvy about the intricacies of the Internet. I
asked what that meant, exactly.
“Access to the site was blocked,” Q said.
“You’re saying the site was censored.”
Q nodded.
My skepticism must have shown.
“I know how this sounds,” Q said.
“Online censorship? Here? In the United States?”
Q didn’t say a word. Just threw me a look, and a shrug.
“You’re saying—this really happened.”
“I believe it happened,” Q said. “I know how it could have happened. I
know who might have caused it to happen, and maybe even why. But
there’s a big difference between knowing and knowing. All the difference in
the world.”

Of course censorship can happen here. It is happening here. As I eventually

learned, Internet portals like Google and Yahoo as well as the U.S.
government can “blacklist” and essentially “exclude” or “de-list” or “take
down” any Web site whose content they find somehow objectionable. Peter
Fitzgerald, a law professor at Stetson University in Florida, has studied one
such blacklist managed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In a New York Times interview Fitzgerald
described the blacklist operation as very mysterious. “There really is no
explanation or standard,” he observed, “for why someone gets on the list.”1
Wherever in the world The Book of the World originated, once uploaded
to the Web it fell within easy reach of U.S. censors, both governmental and
corporate. The fact that so many large domain name registrars are based in
this country, says Susan Crawford, a leading authority on Internet law, gives
these Powers a great deal of control “over a great deal of speech—none of
which may be actually hosted in the U.S.” The Powers can literally make
“speech disappear” without having to justify their actions.2 There is no

1
Adam Liptak, “A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears,” New York
Times 4 March 2008: 16.
2
Ibid.
iii
oversight of such censorship. No one’s approval, not even that of a judge,
is required to blacklist. That decision hinges on the discretion of a
bureaucrat, who is not without whims and prejudices. In the case of OFAC,
should a party discover that their site has been blacklisted, their only
recourse is to locate the specific bureaucrat who made the decision and
argue for reversal; that, or try to use technological means to circumvent the
censorship. The latter tactic, as Q and I later learned the hard way, is far
from foolproof.
I can understand why Web sites that publish hate speech, bomb-
making instructions and other materials threatening to the public might be
censored from the Internet, though the legality of such action could cer-
tainly be debated on First Amendment grounds. However, according to
Susan Crawford, Web sites that provide strictly “informational materials”—
materials supposedly exempt from blacklisting—are also routinely “disap-
peared.”3 This I cannot understand, especially when a Web site containing
such a benevolent document as The Book of the World is “disappeared” while
innumerable sites unimaginably malevolent in content remain available for
all eyes to see.

At my first meeting with Q, I was totally unaware of the apparently com-

mon but largely covert practice of Internet censorship in the United States.
I had only Q’s word to go on. Though incredulous, for the sake of argu-
ment I chose to suspend my disbelief.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll play along. Now tell me, why would somebody out
there bother to censor The Book of the World? Why would anybody—in or
out of the government—feel so threatened by a spiritual book that it had to
‘ be disappeared’?”
Q’s eyes fixed on mine. “You need to read it.” Voice calm but firm.
“Well, that will be difficult, won’t it?” My sarcasm was sudden and thick.
Regretting my tone, I hastened to apologize. “But you have to understand,”
I went on to say, “that hearing all this, I have my doubts. It’s reasonable to
have doubts.”
Q sat very still. Sat very still for a very long time. There was no trace of
anger, nor any show of understanding. Just the quiet. Then: “I’ve thought
long and hard about this. About what I should do.”
More time. I waited, shifting nervously in my chair.
Finally Q reached a clenched hand across the table between us, and
very deliberately placed a jump drive beside my empty teacup.

3
Ibid.
iv
 I didn’t need to ask. Contained on that device, I knew, was The Book of
the World. All the time we’d been talking together Q had been secretly hold-
ing it, safeguarding it in one hand while the other hand stirred cream into
tea. Lying there on the table, the jump drive looked so modern, so ordinary.
What should I have expected—a parchment scroll?
Picking up the jump drive, I felt an immediate rush of intrigue, fol-
lowed by cool bewilderment. After all, according to Q’s story, during its
brief life on the Internet the text of this “modern-day holy book” could
only be viewed, not downloaded. “Where did you get this?” I asked Q.
“Where it came from doesn’t matter. What matters is where it goes.”
Instantly my mind spun off into speculation. “It’s you,” I was thinking,
staring at Q. “You wrote The Book of the World. You never had to download
it because you had it all along.”
“Put it someplace safe,” Q was saying, in a voice I scarcely heard over
my own swirling thoughts. “It’s the only copy I will give you.”
I now felt fairly certain that Q was toying with me, manipulating me
toward some unknown end. Yet despite my deepening suspicions I re-
mained curious about the document I held in my hand. Blame it on the
writer in me, but I still wanted to see it. I kept my doubts to myself.
Q was smiling at me, obviously more relaxed now that the play had
been made.
“Just read it,” Q urged. “Then, if you’d like, we’ll talk again.”

Despite all my misgivings, I read The Book of the World in one sitting. (Not
the best way to do it, by the way. Scripture’s not meant to be read like a
novel.) Even in its rather rough and presumably original form, this wasn’t a
book to be read quickly. It wasn’t a book to be taken lightly. It wasn’t a
book to be understood immediately, or fully—if ever.
It wasn’t a book to easily let go.
Since that first reading I have lived intimately with this book. We two
have become faithful companions. Reflected in its pages (as in the pages of
few other books) I see many of the values and concerns that are central to
the living of my life—among them, the cultivation of compassion, the ex-
pansion of peace and justice, the growth of respect for this planet and all
living things. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that The Book of the
World says. If I did, its author, I imagine, would surely take me to task. Nev-
ertheless, its words daily call me out of complacency, urging me to keep on
with the great work of making my soul—which is, at the same time, the
great work of making the world.
The Book of the World is indeed what it apparently set out to be: a sacred
text. Clearly it was created not to supercede or replace other (usually quite
v
ancient) sacred texts, such as the Hebrew or Christian Bible, but to offer
alongside them its own painful beauty and profound witness. Like the
greatest world scriptures, this piece of wisdom literature makes use of a va-
riety of literary forms—narrative, poetry, proverbs and prophecy, just to
name a few. As are other scriptures, it is engaged with both body and spirit,
individual and community, earth and beyond; when taken seriously, it can
guide, encourage, vex, comfort, challenge, infuriate, inspire, even revolu-
tionize. To be sure, it is a youngster among elder scriptures, yet it too might
one day prove worthy, through the reading and testing of its words, of deep
respect, even veneration.
The Book of the World may not be regarded as scripture by any particular
religious group. It doesn’t wish to be. But it could be regarded as scripture
by anyone who receives it with an open heart and spacious mind. This is its
intention: to speak not to some but to any and all, regardless of religion,
regardless of country, regardless of race, regardless of gender—regardless of
difference.
As Q forewarned, this scripture, though claiming to be “a revelation”
(1.6), is not divinely revealed.4 No god dictated its words. No god stands
behind its words, backing them up. The Book of the World, in all its glory and
all its pain, is a fully human document. Unapologetically human.
It is also one of a kind. Its uniqueness lies primarily in the fact that, like
a beautiful handmade weaving, it is at once both completely derivative and
wholly original. Let me explain.
Not a single line of text in this book of scripture is original to the
book’s “author”. Every verse is a quotation; its verse number refers to a
note at the bottom of the page, naming its source. Contained in the docu-
ment are nearly 3,000 quotations from more than 1,200 people, some of
them living, some long dead, hailing from every continent but Antarctica.
They are some of our world’s spiritual teachers, ethicists, philosophers,
theologians, clergy, political prisoners, refugees, human rights advocates,
environmentalists, laborers, statesmen and women, military leaders, educa-
tors, scientists, inventors, authors, poets, musicians, entertainers, athletes,
entrepreneurs and, yes, even criminals. Some of those quoted have been
informed or inspired by a particular philosophical or religious tradition;
others, by none that we know of. Many of them, like Mother Teresa or
Martin Luther King, Jr., have been widely admired; a few, like the Nazi

4
Scriptural passages from The Book of the World can be cited by page, chapter and
verse. For example, passage 6.1:11 would refer to page 6, chapter 1, verse 11. Please
note that narrative pages (italicized in the Contents) include no chapter numbers, as
in the quote footnoted above (1.6), referring to page 1, verse 6.
vi
commander Herman Göring, have been generally despised; others are to-
tally unknown.
The quotations that comprise this book of scripture are like the count-
less threads, both coarse and silken, that a master weaver carefully selects,
then skillfully weaves into a vibrant tapestry. So, in this sense The Book of the
World is “completely derivative.” Yet the document is also “wholly original”
because each quotation, by virtue of its being woven together with totally
new threads and becoming part of a totally new pattern, finds itself trans-
formed in meaning, perhaps even radically so. Each new pattern, in turn, is
artfully joined to another, forming a rich spiritual fabric, a striking spiritual
text, unlike any other.

Who, then, did the weaving?

If you want a factual answer to this question, you will be disappointed.
I can say only one thing for certain about this book’s author (more
properly, its “editor” or “redactor”): It is not Q. Over time, I have become
utterly convinced of this. Whoever did write the book will probably remain
forever a mystery, since anonymity seems to be that person’s fundamental
wish.
I should also say that the book’s author must not be confused with its
narrator. When, for example, we hear the narrator claiming to be someone
wrongly accused and secretly detained as a terror suspect—one of the
world’s “forcibly disappeared”5—we cannot take the claim at face value.
The statement is not necessarily autobiographical. After all, the narrator’s
voice is not what it appears. It is not the voice of one person or literary

5
The world’s “forcibly disappeared” are “individuals imprisoned at places and under
poor conditions unknown to their relatives and/or legal representatives.” Among the
scores of men, women and even children who have been forcibly disappeared in at
least 30 countries today are farmers, students, lawyers, artists, teachers, businesspeo-
ple, physicians, writers, religious leaders and human rights activists. A growing num-
ber of these citizens have been disappeared during “counter-terrorism operations,”
especially in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in
the United States on September 11, 2001.
The disappeared are abducted by governmental or other Powers, illegally detained,
ill-treated, often tortured and, in most cases, either extrajudicially executed or allowed
to die from wounds or natural causes. In most instances the corpses of the dead are
secretly disposed of. In rare cases someone who was disappeared will be released
without charge, often after prolonged imprisonment. Commonly the person will have
been warned by the Powers not to speak about his or her experiences while detained.
The fate of most of the world’s disappeared will remain forever unknown.

vii
character. It is, rather, a composite voice, constructed from numerous quo-
tations, entirely woven from the words of other people. We simply don’t
know how closely that composite narrative voice, and the personal details it
shares, mirror the actual life of the author. Put another way, it is impossible
to say for certain whether this book’s narrative portions lie closer to fact or
to fiction.
This need not perplex us. Rather, it can encourage us to concern
ourselves less with the literal truth of The Book of the World than with its
metaphorical or spiritual truth. Interpreted in the latter sense, the book’s
narrator is neither the author in disguise nor a fictional character but
humanity itself, forcibly disappeared, imprisoned and threatened with death
by the Powers of fear, prejudice, and hatred. In other words, the narrator is
humanity asserting its deepest values before it is too late.
This is why I decided, when eventually Q made the request of me, to
lend The Book of the World my name as editor and prepare it for print. There
is much about this document that I do not know, but I know enough. My
primary concern is no longer its origins or history, but its meaning, which,
as its author repeatedly declares, is inseparable from its being lived out.

When during a later conversation Q proposed that we publish this docu-

ment as a traditional book, I hesitated. Like Q, I wanted The Book of the
World to gain an audience. But how? What would be the most appropriate
way to go about it?
I am an author. I know how laborious and costly is the work of writing,
what an investment of time and money and sweat and self it involves. And I
know how I would feel if someone somehow procured materials I had writ-
ten and published them without my permission.
But Q made a convincing case for our working together to publish The
Book of the World as a paperback, citing several reasons. First and foremost,
the world at large would reap some benefit, however modest, from its pub-
lication. “Just imagine all the people who would get to read this book, mull
it over, test its truth, practice its wisdom,” Q told me. “What might happen
as a result? We can only hope.”
Second, The Book of the World was unlikely to reach the public at all un-
less Q and I published it as a bound book. Online publication (the original
intention of its author) had come to seem impossible, the censorship un-
avoidable. At my urging Q had twice attempted to publish the book online,
in its original form, being careful to use countermeasures against blacklist-
ing. Both attempts had failed. It was now evident that somebody did not want
this document on the World Wide Web.
viii
 Third, by concealing his or her identity the author of The Book of the
World had deliberately cut all ties with its future. Clearly that person wanted
to make a positive contribution to the world by sharing his or her work; just
as clearly, that person, for whatever reason, did not want to take credit for
that work. By helping to produce and distribute the book without laying any
claim to it, Q and I would honor both of these wishes of the author.
To produce, promote and distribute a book costs money; the more
widely available a book is made, and the larger the demand, the greater the
expense. In order to recoup our costs, Q and I would need to sell copies of
The Book of the World rather than simply give them away. Q proposed that
we donate to charity any income we happened to raise above expenses.
Since my own custom is to donate to humanitarian organizations a portion
of the sales proceeds from my books and recordings, Q’s idea held immedi-
ate appeal.
Although Q’s arguments in favor of publication were convincing, in the
end it was The Book of the World itself that persuaded me to act. “There is the
vast mass of things in the world,” I read, “and the act of creation that cuts
through them, divides the things that might happen from those that do.
Learn to know ever more deeply: from now on every single thing demands
decision, and every action responsibility. You are the decisive element”
(85.2:1-3).

The text of The Book of the World appears in these pages largely as it did in
the digital document I received from Q. I have copyedited the text, but I
haven’t abridged, expanded or rearranged it in any way, with one notable
exception (see “To the Unknown Author” on page xv). Following the lead
of the book’s creator, I have allowed myself the freedom to slightly alter
some of the quotations, particularly in terms of tense and pronoun usage.
Such changes, indicated by italics, have served primarily to smooth the prose
and to make gender references more inclusive.
For the sake of consistency, all spellings have been rendered into
American English.
Please be aware that I did not attempt to check the accuracy of the
quotations. That task would have been monumental, if not impossible, as I
had no list of bibliographic sources. Further, without those sources I could
not gain legal permission on the author’s behalf to cite them. I can only
hope that the authors and publishers whose materials have been incorpo-
rated into this text will take no offense at the infringement. Sometimes a
creative work demands that rules be broken on its behalf. Otherwise it
would never come to light. The rules I have broken, I have broken in good
faith, as did the book’s author before me.
ix
 Beyond copyediting the text and writing the Introduction and other
front matter, my only contributions to The Book of the World have been to
compile the Index of Names and, with Q’s generous and able assistance, to
format and publish the final manuscript.
The privilege has been mine.

Just weeks before The Book of the World went to press, Q passed away. I can-
not tell you the cause of death. I cannot tell you whether the death was
sudden or expected. Q would not want such details revealed.
Q’s death saddens me beyond words. We two had quickly become
friends, in the rare way of true friends. As I write this, the grief cuts deep.
Yet I rejoice that Q’s vision for this book—the vision that had caused Q to
agree to meet with me in the first place—is now coming to pass.
I remember an exchange from one of our last conversations. “Just
imagine what this book is claiming to be,” Q had exclaimed. “A new holy
book. A holy book that is wholly human. A holy book written by someone
accused of being a terrorist. The scandal of it!”
“Yes,” I mused, “rather like the son of God being crucified on a Ro-
man cross after being charged with sedition.”
“Are you a Christian?” Q had asked me then, bringing up religion for
the first and only time in our brief but vibrant acquaintance.
I smiled, said, “I am a human being.”
“Ah,” Q smiled back. “One of those.”
I had poured tea into Q’s cup, offered cream, known better than to
offer sugar. “Do you understand,” Q had said, then, stirring, “how threat-
ening this book will be to some among us? To those who insist we all share
their way of viewing the world, their way of believing, their way of being in
the world?”
I realized then, as I do now, what Q was saying. There is risk in pub-
lishing this book. I still have trouble comprehending why, exactly, but the
repeated Internet blacklisting proved it beyond all doubt.
The friend who had first told me about Q and the “modern-day holy
book censored from the Web” enthusiastically supported our publishing
plans. Yet she urged me not to list my name as editor, not to write an intro-
duction, not to associate myself publically with the book in any way.
“Maybe that’s why the book’s author never revealed his or her name,” she
suggested. “Maybe the risk was just too great.” The lines in her face deep-
ened as she pressed her argument. “I know that your support would
strengthen the book’s credibility. But I also know what some people are
capable of. Please don’t tempt them.”
My friend is a stout soul. Her pleas gave me serious pause.
x
 Yet the turbulence of our times and the testimony of this book—the life
in this book—demand that certain risks be taken. In these days of discord
and violence, when it’s difficult to shout at one another across the chasms
of difference and be heard, let alone reach mutual understanding and re-
spect, The Book of the World cries out with a voice unlike any other.
This is the voice of humanity itself, dissenting from the status quo;
—the voice of humanity itself, renouncing division and bloodshed in
favor of unity and the strenuous work of peacemaking;
—the voice of humanity itself, challenging us all to break through our
apathy and indifference, to engage in a “revolution of the heart” (86.3:2)
and a “transformation of the world” (87.3:6) for the sake of our children
and children yet to be born, for the sake of our neighbor, for the sake of
our planet, for the sake of ourselves. . . .
This is the voice of the world.
Q refused to let this voice be silenced. And in the spirit of Q, I now
complete what some unknown soul, writing somewhere on this teeming
and tempestuous planet, began.
This is one book of scripture that will not be suppressed by the Powers.
Make of it what you will.

PHYLLIS COLE-DAI
August, 2008

xi
 T O T H E

U N K N O W N A U T H O R

You have no face, no voice of your own. We, your readers, don’t know who
you are or where you’re from. We don’t know what prompted you to com-
pose this document, or under what circumstances you did so.
You are mist.
Yet you are out there, we hope and trust, still among the living. We
can’t see you directly, but there is some suggestion of you, rising up in the
shape of what you have done. What you have done tells us, first and fore-
most, that you are someone who cares passionately about this world. You
are, furthermore, someone who works passionately for the sake of this
world, having created, if nothing else, this uncommon book—this sacred
book—on its behalf. You tried to share it with humanity, only to be si-
lenced by a censor’s hand. In this you’re not alone; such has been the fate
of many writers of sacred texts throughout the centuries.
Finally, what you have done tells us that you are someone who values
privacy, at least as regards this book. You wish to remain anonymous.
Perhaps, like my friend Q, you fear reprisal. Perhaps you shun personal
recognition. Or perhaps you just like a good mystery, and wrote yourself
into one. The truth is, we have no way of knowing.
Publication is now accomplished, though not as you originally intended.
Without your knowledge or consent, Q and I appointed ourselves your ac-
complices, that this document might live. I trust you would approve. Q is
now gone beyond, but I promise that so long as I remain, so will The Book of
the World. Never again will anyone manage to make it disappear, though
some, no doubt, will seek to contain its reach.
As for your anonymity, I can appreciate the possible reasons behind it,
yet I can’t help but wish you would reconsider. Step out of the mist. Show
yourself. Show yourself at least to me. Be aware that you will have to prove
who you are. Somewhere in these pages I have made a small but significant
change, an unmarked change, that only you, as creator of this book, could
recognize. If you wish to reveal yourself, just identify this signal alteration,
and I’ll know for certain that you are indeed who you claim to be.
Please forgive my testing of you. But you had to expect, in remaining
hidden, that there would be pretenders.
Until such time as I hear from you, if in fact I ever do, I can only thank
you, here on this page, with full heart, for what you have done. This world
of ours, tormented though it may be, is a dear place, and by creating this
book and challenging us as you have, you have made it only more so.

xv
 BOOK
THE OF
THE

WORLD
a contemporary scripture
The ageless mouth of the world lies hid.

ANTIPATER OF SIDON

Do not forget me.

SAMI AL-HAJJ
4listen
I
to me.
5This
have to tell you this, whoever you are. 2I know you
have important things to tend to, but it is life and death
I am talking about. 3Please stop what you’re doing, and

book is not a book about what is, but a book about what could
be. 6It is a revelation. 7Its words were given to me. 8Not a word is mine
(9only the title, 10and the mistakes), 11but it is the sincerest thing I have writ-
ten. 12It is the only thing that clarifies my life. 13My whole heart is in it.
14I am not a public person. I am a person who likes to read and to learn

and to quietly reflect on the world. 15I am not a proclaimer. 16But now I
have no choice. 17I must speak out.
18This ink which fills the pages is my soul. I want my soul to flow. I am

not like the cuttlefish, which uses its ink to deceive fishermen and predatory
fish. I don’t want to deceive anyone.
19This is my testimony, 20my letter to the World. 21I wanted to write it

down, so it wouldn't be lost forever. 22I offer it as one might offer one’s fa-
ther's ashes to the wind, a gesture when there's nothing else to do. 23It's just
words on paper. 24Yet so intimately, out there at the pen’s point, do world
and spirit wed. 25It’s t here I must weave thought’s tapestry.
26Can I invite you to entertain certain of my beliefs, as one entertains a

guest? I ask for the hospitality of an honestly open ear and offer assurance
that I will not overstay my welcome.

1. Philip Appleman. 2. Khaled Hosseini. 3. Mostafa Chendid. 4. Al Franken.

5. Kurt Vonnegut. 6. Thomas Paine. 7. Jack Ford. 8. Sharmaji. 9. Alex
Kuczynski. 10. Abdur Rahman. 11. Laurence Housman. 12. Gerald Stern. 13.
John Adams. 14. Elias Khoury. 15. Alan Lightman. 16. Muhammad. 17. Bob
Dylan. 18. Kim Rosario. 19. Rigoberta Menchú. 20. Emily Dickinson. 21.
Philip Appleman. 22. Stephen Dunn. 23. August Wilson. 24. Howard Ne-
merov. 25. Valerio Magrelli. 26. Arthur Frank.

1
 W H A T

W E N E E D I S H E R E

1 One wants a Teller in a time

like this. 2Open your ears and
listen to me, and 3what is hidden
have ever been, alone.
9Give ear.

from you I will tell you. 4I am free

—5free, even here, 6even within
these walls—7to speak the truth,
knowing that being believed is not
relevant to the speaking.
8I had an experience I can’t
prove, I can’t even explain it, but
everything that I know as a human
being, everything that I am tells
me that it was real. I was part of
something wonderful, something
that changed me forever; a vision
of the Universe that tells us unde-
niably how tiny, and insignificant,
and how rare and precious we all
2 This teaching which I give
you is not hidden from you,
and is not far away. It is not in
heaven for you to say, “Who will
go up to heaven and bring it down
for us, so that we can hear it and
do it?” The teaching is very near
you: it is in your mouth and in your
heart, so that you can do it. 2I am
wanting to give you what is already
yours. 3What we need is here. And
we pray, not for new earth or
heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and
in eye clear.
4That is the smile: that what

are. A vision that tells us we belong might not be, is.

to something that is greater than 5What we need is here.

ourselves. That none of us is, or

CHAPTER 1.1. Gwendolyn Brooks. 1.2. Stung Arm. 1.3. Jesus. 1.4. Mariah
Carey. 1.5. Ramakrishna. 1.6. James Robert Hope-Scott. 1.7. Author Un-
known. 1.8. Carl Sagan. 1.9. Kiosaaton. CHAPTER 2.1. Moses. 2.2. W. S.
Merwin. 2.3. Wendell Berry. 2.4. John Fowles. 2.5. Wendell Berry.

2
 E A R T H I S

O U R O N L Y H O M E

1 Come with me and I’ll tell you

a story.
2Our galaxy is one of billions
of galaxies populating the uni-
verse, 3blowing like snowflakes in a
cosmic storm. 4Each galaxy itself
contains some hundred thousand
million stars. 5The light that we see
from distant galaxies left them
millions of years ago.
6Far out in the uncharted back-
“Wish you were here.” 2The Earth
was small, light blue, and so touch-
ingly alone. 3The size of a marble,
the most beautiful marble you can
imagine. That beautiful, warm, liv-
ing object looked so fragile, so
delicate, that if you touched it with
a finger it would crumble and fall
apart. 4I was terrified by its fragile
appearance.
5My view of our planet was a

waters of the unfashionable end of glimpse of divinity. 6It had a thin

the western spiral of our galaxy lies
a small unregarded yellow sun: 7our
sun, one of the 100 billion stars in
our galaxy 8planted together in
clusters.
halo of blue held close, and be-
yond, black space. 7When you see
the Earth from space, you don’t
see any divisions of nation-states,
8any differences in race or religion.

All you can see is one Earth.

2 Who are we? We live on an

insignificant planet. 2On a tiny
little dust mote in left field. 3A pale
9Only when I saw it from

space, in all its ineffable beauty

and fragility—10one great dewdrop,
blue dot. 4A tiny blue and green striped and dotted with continents
oasis of life in a cold universe. and islands, flying through space
with the other stars all singing and

3 A friend of mine once sent

me a post card with a picture
of the entire planet Earth taken
from space. On the back it said,
shining together as one—11did I
realize that humankind’s most ur-
gent task is to cherish and preserve
the Earth for future generations.

CHAPTER 1.1. Markus Zusak. 1.2. Werner von Braun. 1.3. Chet Raymo. 1.4.
Steven W. Hawking. 1.5. Steven W. Hawking. 1.6. Douglas Adams. 1.7. Wer-
ner von Braun. 1.8. Galileo Galilei. CHAPTER 2.1. Carl Sagan. 2.2. Bill Anders.
2.3. Carl Sagan. 2.4. David Suzuki. CHAPTER 3.1. Stephen Wright. 3.2. Alek-
sei Leonov. 3.3. James Irwin. 3.4. Ulf Merbold. 3.5. Edgar Mitchell. 3.6.
Charles Walker. 3.7. Joseph Campbell. 3.8. Anousheh Ansari. 3.9. Sigmund
Jähn. 3.10. John Muir. 3.11. Sigmund Jähn.

3
 12This is home. 13It is our only
home.

CHAPTER 3.12. Donna Chavis. 3.13. The XIVth Dalai Lama.

4
 W
ho do you say that I am?
2Here I am, naked without identity, with no

more body than the fine black tracery of pen mark

on soft paper.
3I am not real. 4But I am here.
5I am because you are.
6I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me. 7See

yourself in Me who am speaking, and keep silent about my mysteries.

1. Jesus. 2. Allen Ginsberg. 3. Jahandost. 4. Edwidge Danticat. 5. African

saying. 6. Jalaluddin Rumi. 7. Jesus.

5
 I D O N O T

K N O W I T S N A M E

1 What is the origin of the

Earth? 2What is the origin of
our own existence on Earth?
2 When you must speak of
2 the Nameless One, 3speak of

“mystery,” 4or perhaps of “ truth”,

3You look at it, but it is not to 5rather than of “God.” 6Better still,

be seen; you listen to it, but it is be silent.

not to be heard; you grasp it, but it 7Creeds grow so thick along

is not to be held. Confronting it, the way, their boughs hide “God,”
you do not see its face; following 8before whom all words recoil.

it, you do not see its back.
4It is everywhere. 5I do not
know its name.
6Since no one really knows
what it is, and 7sages call it by dif-
ferent names, 8I put “God” in
quotes. 9“God” is that which, even
when you stop believing in it,
doesn’t go away. 10It is the move-
ment behind the movement.
11Divine presence exceeds ev-
ery limit we would place on it.
12Don't think of it in terms of
9What can words tell of things that
have no yesterday, tomorrow, or
today? 10How can you describe the
true form of Something in whose
presence you are blotted out? And
in whose being you still exist?
11We cannot comprehend
what comprehends us. 12We dance
round in a ring and suppose, but
the Secret sits in the middle and
knows.

forms, because forms are limited

and “God”—13the enfolding and
unfolding of everything that is—
14is unlimited. 15Don’t think of it at
all! Rather, 16experience it as a mys-
tery.
3 Do not hope to find “God”
here or there—but every-
where. 2“God” is a sphere whose
center is everywhere and whose
circumference is nowhere. 3You do
not see the center, because it is all
center.

CHAPTER 1.1. Stefan Hlatky. 1.2. Stefan Hlatky. 1.3. Lao-tzu. 1.4. Chuang-tzu.
1.5. Lao-tzu. 1.6. Melba Dagan. 1.7. Rig-Veda. 1.8. R. John Hounsell-Drover.
1.9. Phillip K. Dick. 1.10. Charmaine White Face. 1.11. Drew Christiansen.
1.12. C. S. Lewis. 1.13. Nicholas of Cusa. 1.14. C. S. Lewis. 1.15. Fyodor
Dostoevsky. 1.16. German Martinez. CHAPTER 2.1. Mother of Gopi Chand.
2.2. Daniel Martin. 2.3. Martin Marty. 2.4. Edward Gibbon. 2.5. Martin Marty.
2.6. Antonio Lubrano. 2.7. Lizette Reese. 2.8. Shankara. 2.9. Seng-ts’an. 2.10.
Rabia al-Basri. 2.11. Wendell Berry. 2.12. Robert Frost. CHAPTER 3.1. André
Gide. 3.2. Hermes Trismegistus. 3.3. C. S. Lewis.

6
 4I believe we are all manifesta- this universe is all the body of
tions of “God.” 5The one who “God”.
looks out of my eyes and out of 9I renounce any attempt to

everyone’s eyes is the same center.
6In all faces is seen the Face of
faces, veiled and in a riddle.
7 Everything seems to come
from the Infinite, to be filled with
the Infinite, to be tending toward
the Infinite. 8Any and everything of
judge what is, from what is not,
Divine. I intend to recognize “God”
in every aspect of experience which
impinges on me. I see all parts of
the Whole without prejudice. I rec-
ognize all this separation as Unity.

CHAPTER 3.4. Sally Patton. 3.5. Alan Watts. 3.6. Nicholas of Cusa. 3.7. Lydia
M. Child. 3.8. Ofudesaki. 3.9. Gillian Kean.

7
 W
hy am I hiding behind other people’s words?
2Nobody knows my name. 3I will not let that

happen. 4I will not let anyone else define me. 5I

swore: never again, never, never again. 6Never again! 7I will be completely
invisible, from beginning to end.
8Who I am doesn’t matter. What I am doesn’t matter. 9Not in my own

mind.
10But I matter anyway. 11I am a human being of substance, of flesh and

bone, fiber and liquids, and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am
invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
12I am a watercolor. I wash off. 13I am disappeared.
14Anybody can disappear.

1. Leonard Jacobs. 2. James Baldwin. 3. Margaret McCarthy. 4. N. Scott Mo-

maday. 5. Willem A. M. Alting von Geusau. 6. Ingrid Bergman. 7. J. M. Coet-
zee. 8. Dean Jéan-Pierre. 9. Bill Clinton. 10. Jamaica Kincaid. 11. Ralph
Ellison. 12. Anne Sexton. 13. Larisa Alexandrovna. 14. Athar Minallah.

8
 W H A T I S

T R U T H ?

1 Some say “God” is Truth,

that the two terms are inter-
changeable. It is so. 2Truth is
as far as possible, all things.
2Question everything. Every stripe,

every star, every word spoken. Ev-

“God,” 3worthy of all the devotion
of which the human spirit is capa-
ble. 4It keeps us though we do not
know it. 5There is no other refuge.
erything. 3Re-examine all that you
have been told. Dismiss that which
insults your soul. 4Truth is that
which does not contaminate you,
but empowers you.

2 Truth knows no color. 2It has

no boundaries. 3It is a path-
less land. 4It lies beyond.
5Sometime, somewhere you
take something to be the truth. If
you cling to it so much, when the
truth comes in person and knocks

3 Thirst was made for water;

inquiry for truth. 2Our minds
possess by nature an insatiable de-
at your door, you will not open it.
6Remain unsure, leave oppor-

tunities for alternatives. Do not

sire to know truth. 3Myths and
creeds and doctrines are heroic strug-
gles to comprehend it. 4But all sys-
tems of thought are guiding means;
they are not absolute truth. 5Such
truth is beyond words, doctrines. It
is wordless. 6It is what is left when
become enthusiastic for the fact,
the knowledge, the absolute truth
of the day, but remain always un-
certain. In order to make progress,
you must leave the door to the un-
known ajar.
7The more we know the less we

we drop all concepts. understand. 8We see in a mirror

7Cease to cherish opinions. dimly, 9and should call every truth
false which is n ot accompanied by

4 If you would be a real seeker

after truth, it is necessary that
at least once in your life you doubt,
at least one laugh.
10Believe those who are seeking

the truth. Doubt those who find it.

CHAPTER 1.1. James Clark. 1.2. Mahatma Gandhi. 1.3. Bertrand Russell. 1.4.
Wendell Berry. 1.5. Digha Nikaya. CHAPTER 2.1. James Cone. 2.2. Thich Nhat
Hanh. 2.3. Jiddu Krishnamurti. 2.4. Marcel Proust. CHAPTER 3.1. C. S. Lewis.
3.2. Marcus Tullius Cicero. 3.3. Ansel Adams. 3.4. Thich Nhat Hanh. 3.5.
Bodhidharma. 3.6. David Merzel. 3.7. Seng-ts’an. CHAPTER 4.1. René Des-
cartes. 4.2. Ernest J. Gaines. 4.3. Walt Whitman. 4.4. Gary Zukav. 4.5.
Gautama Buddha. 4.6. Richard Feynman. 4.7. Meister Eckhart. 4.8. Paul the
Apostle. 4.9. Friedrich Nietzsche. 4.10. André Gide.

9
5 Do not put faith in traditions,
even though they have been
accepted by long generations and
in many countries. Do not believe
a thing because many repeat it. 2Do
not believe anything because it is
said by an authority, or if it is said
to come from angels, or from
gods, or from an inspired source.
3Never believe anything because
probability is in its favor. 4Believe
it only if you have explored it in
your own heart and mind and body
and found it to be true. 5When you
know in yourself: “This is whole-
some, blameless, commended by
the wise, and being adopted and
put into effect it leads to welfare
4Belief
5lives
clings, faith lets go,
with doubt and uncertainty
and not knowing. 6Faith is actually
strengthened by doubt when doubt
is a sincere, critical questioning
combined with deep trust in our
own right and ability to discern the
truth.
7We do not need many beliefs,
just enough to direct our work, to
sustain us in sorrow, and to pro-
vide for gratitude. 8Not that beliefs
are necessarily wrong or irrelevant.
Beliefs can provide a thread of
continuity and perspective as we
undergo the tumultuous changes
and storms of everyday life.
9It matters what we believe.

and happiness,” then you should
practice and abide in it. 6Practice,
work hard, and give it everything
you have.
Some beliefs are like walled gar-
dens. They encourage exclusive-
ness, and the feeling of being
especially privileged. Other beliefs
are expansive and lead the way

6 Such is faith. 2Faith, in con-

trast to belief, is not a defini-
tion of reality, not a received an-
swer, but an active, open state that
makes us willing to explore. While
beliefs come to us from outside—
from another person or a tradition
or heritage—faith comes from
within, from our alive participation
in the process of discovery. 3It is
the feeling of life in oneself.
into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some beliefs are like shadows,
clouding our days with fears of un-
known calamities. Other beliefs are
like sunshine, blessing us with the
warmth of happiness. Some beliefs
are divisive, separating the saved
from the unsaved, friends from
enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in
a world community, where sincere
differences beautify the pattern.

CHAPTER 5.1. Gautama Buddha. 5.2. Gautama Buddha. 5.3. Gautama Buddha.
5.4. Gautama Buddha. 5.5. Gautama Buddha. 5.6. Jerome Hanna “Dizzy”
Dean. CHAPTER 6.1. John Wesley. 6.2. Sharon Salzberg. 6.3. Wilhelm Reich.
6.4. Alan Watts. 6.5. Richard Feynman. 6.6. Sharon Salzberg. 6.7. Frederick
Franck. 6.8. Sharon Salzberg. 6.9. Sophia Lyon Fahs.

10
Some beliefs are rigid, like the
body of death, impotent in a
changing world. Other beliefs are
pliable, like the young sapling, ever
growing with the upward thrust of
life.
10It's not the existence of be-
Many truths—all equally true. 7We
stumble over them from time to
time, but most of us pick ourselves
up and hurry off as if nothing hap-
pened.

liefs that is the problem, but what

happens to us when we hold them
rigidly, without examining them,
when we presume the absolute
centrality of our views and become
8 There are times when we must
sink to the bottom of our
misery to understand truth. 2Go
deep enough and there is a bed-
rock of truth, however hard.
3It is always the false that makes

disdainful of others. 11To be at-
tached to a certain view and to
look down upon other views as
inferior—this the wise call a fetter.
12Let there be no compulsion
us suffer, the false desires and fears,
the false values and ideas, the false
relationships. Abandon the false
and we are free of pain.

in religion. 13Respect others in their

views, and demand that they re-
spect yours. 14In the past the relig-
ions all too often have brought
inner peace to their followers while
fighting external wars against the
others.
9 Be patient toward all that is
unsolved in your heart and try
to love the questions themselves
like locked rooms and like books
that are written in a very foreign
tongue. Do not now seek the an-
swers, which cannot be given you
because you would not be able to

7 What is truth? 2I’m speaking

now 3not of ultimate truth,
but 4the truth of one’s life.
5Perhaps the truth depends on
a walk around the lake.
6There is no one truth. There
are many truths. You have a truth.
I have a truth. Both could be true.
live them. And the point is, to live
everything. Live the questions now.
(2Sometimes it is not the answer that
enlightens, but the question.)
3The personal life deeply lived
always expands into truths beyond
itself. 4We have what we seek, it is
here all the time, and if we give it

CHAPTER 6.10. Sharon Salzberg. 6.11. Gautama Buddha. 6.12. Muhammad.

6.13. Tecumseh. 6.14. Raimundo Panikkar. CHAPTER 7.1. The Gospel of John.
7.2. Mary Murray Shelton. 7.3. Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 7.4. Edward C. Sellner.
7.5. Wallace Stevens. 7.6. Satish Kumar. 7.7. Winston Churchill. CHAPTER
8.1. Václav Havel. 8.2. May Sarton. 8.3. Nisargadatta Maharaj. CHAPTER 9.1.
Rainer Maria Rilke. 9.2. Eugene Ionesco. 9.3. Anaïs Nin. 9.4. Thomas Merton.

11
time, it will make itself known to us.
5Sitting quietly, doing nothing,

spring comes, and the grass grows

11 There is only one truth
that really matters, and
that is this: it is happening. Now. 2I
by itself. tell you, truth is, at the moment,
here burning outward through our

10 You will know the truth.

2Be what you know, 3and

the truth will make you free.

skins. 3This is the hour that reveals
us.

CHAPTER 9.5. Zen saying. CHAPTER 10.1. Jesus. 10.2. Zen saying. 10.3. Jesus.
CHAPTER 11.1. Sarah Dessen. 11.2. Adrienne Rich. 11.3. Rui Pires Cabral.

12
 T hey call me a terrorist.
2I am not a terrorist. 3I have never been involved

in the preparation of a terrorist act. 4Nor do I support

people who commit or incite others to carry out acts of mass murder. 5I
would stop any bomb. 6I would smother it with my body. 7Let me announce
with all the strength at my command, 8terrorism is the opposite of my con-
ception of life.
9I am not a terrorist—10I’m just an ordinary person like you.

1. Nazir Zakir. 2. T-shirt. 3. Willie Brigitte. 4. Riazat Butt. 5. Mahmoud Abu

Rideh. 6. Shlomo Riskin. 7. Bhagat Singh. 8. Willie Brigitte. 9. Vivienne
Westwood. 10. Norainah Ahm Jamil.

13
 T H E

W H O L E W O R L D I S K I N

1 Who will speak for Planet

Earth?
2I am the singer. I shall sing
the Earth, and I shall sing your lost
around us, we are the same as ev-
erything. 6All blades of grass, wood
and stone, all things are One.
7There is one common flow, one

dreaming that walks the day be- common breathing, all things are in
tween sleep and sleep. 3The great sympathy.
sea has set me in motion, set me 8The world exists not for what

adrift, moving me like a weed in a
great river. The sky and the strong
wind have moved the spirit inside
me till I am carried away, trembling
with joy.
4I will tell the secret to you, to
you, only to you.
5Listen to me.
it means but for what it is. The
purpose of mushrooms is to be
mushrooms; wine is in order to
be wine. 9The virtues of grasses,
stones and trees do not exist be-
cause we know them. They are noble
in themselves, 10precious before they
are contributory. 11Glorify things
just because they are.

2 I am earth, earth. 2The same

stream of life that runs through
the world runs through my veins
night and day in rhythmic measure.
It is the same life that shoots in joy
through the dust into numberless
waves of flowers.
3I am the earth. You are the
earth. 4We didn’t come into this
world. We came out of it, like
waves from the ocean. We are not
strangers here.
5We consist of that which is
3 The world is greater than its
words. To speak of it the
mind must bend.
4 There is much that we do not
know, and cannot understand.
(For one thing, 2the mystery of the
beginning of all things is insoluble
by us.) 3The human mind is not
capable of grasping the universe.
4The universe is not only queerer
than we suppose, but queerer than

CHAPTER 1.1. Carl Sagan. 1.2. Kahlil Gibran. 1.3. Uvavnuk. 1.4. Margaret
Atwood. 1.5. Maurizio Cucchi. CHAPTER 2.1. Thomas Merton. 2.2. Rabin-
dranath Tagore. 2.3. Ymber Delecto. 2.4. Alan Watts. 2.5. Gautama Buddha.
2.6. Meister Eckhart. 2.7. Hippocrates. 2.8. Robert Cadon. 2.9. Leonardo da
Vinci. 2.10. Robert Cadon. 2.11. Czesław Miłosz. CHAPTER 3. Wendell Berry.
CHAPTER 4.1. Dinah Mulock Craik. 4.2. Charles Darwin. 4.3. Albert Einstein.
4.4. J. B. S. Haldane.

14
we can suppose. 5It is not compre-
hensible, but it is embraceable:
through the embracing of one of
its beings.
6All of nature is in us, all of us
is in nature. 7When we tug at a sin-
gle thing in nature, we find it at-
tached to the rest of the world.
8All things are bound together. All
things are connected. 9There is a
constant and intimate contact—a
sharing of bonds and messages
that makes reality into a stupen-
dous network of interaction and
communication.
10Crazy to be alive in such a
strange world.
even our animal neighbors, the
same right as ourselves to inhabit
the world.
10Traditionally people have al-
ways understood that we are a part
of nature, that everything in nature
is connected to everything else, and
so we have responsibilities to treat
it the right way. Today we don’t
see that at all. We live in a world in
which everything is broken into
bits and pieces and we no longer
see the way everything is intercon-
nected. And if you don’t see that
everything is interconnected, then
you don’t see that there is cause
and effect. And when you lose any
sense of causal connection, then

5 One touch of nature makes

the whole world kin. 2Regard
heaven as your father, earth as your
you lose all sense of responsibility.
Because you no longer see how we
are affecting the rest of the world.
mother—3we are nursing off of 11Humankind has not woven

her—4and all things as your broth-
ers and sisters.
5“Mitakuye oyasin”: We are all
related.
6All living beings come from
the earth. 7All things share the
the web of life. We are but one
thread within it. Whatever we do
to the web, we do to ourselves.
12Cruelty towards others is always
also cruelty towards ourselves.
13When we heal others, we our-

same breath. 8Even sticks and selves are healed.

stones have a spiritual essence. 9It
is through this mysterious power
that we too have our being and we
therefore yield to our neighbors,
6 My heart is like a singing bird:
2Hear me, four quarters of the

world—a relative I am! Give me

CHAPTER 4.5. Martin Buber. 4.6. Pete Catches. 4.7. John Muir. 4.8. Seattle
(Sealth). 4.9. Ervin Laszlo. 4.10. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. CHAPTER 5.1. William
Shakespeare. 5.2. Oracle of Atsuta. 5.3. Mary Gopher. 5.4. Oracle of Atsuta.
5.5. Lakota saying. 5.6. Okanogan saying. 5.7. Seattle (Sealth). 5.8. Lakota
saying. 5.9. Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotaka). 5.10. David Suzuki. 5.11. Seattle
(Sealth). 5.12. Paul Tillich. 5.13. Laura Gentry. CHAPTER 6.1. Christina Ros-
setti. 6.2. Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa).

15
the strength to walk the soft earth, derstand, that I may be like you.
a relative to all that is! Give me the With your power only can I face
eyes to see and the strength to un- the winds.

16
 O ne day, somehow, someone “picked me out”. 2I don’t
know who accused me.
3It was my last day of freedom. (4Yes. There was a

time before.) 5No one was hurrying that Friday morning. 6The morning
haze lay heavily over the river, thinning as it rose. The air was cool. 7A little
breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees.
8Over the years, this river had brought me comfort and peace. I knew its

indentations like I knew the shape of my hand. I knew every grassy spot on
the shore where I could sit. The water gently lapped at some rocks.
9Looking out, I watched two green-headed birds glide out of the mist and

touch on the water in a wraith sweep of dream wings.

10Who knew somebody would betray me?

1. Anna Akhmatova. 2. David Hernández Hernández. 3. Åsne Seierstad. 4.

Erin Belieu. 5. Åsne Seierstad. 6. Åsne Seierstad. 7. Daniel Mendelsohn. 8.
Alan Lightman. 9. Alan Lightman. 10. Shlomo Adler.

17
 A L L
T H I N G S C H A N G E
1 It is said an Eastern monarch
once charged his wise men to
invent him a sentence to be ever in
view, and which should be true and
appropriate in all times and situa-
tions. They presented him the
words: “And this, too, shall pass
away.”
2The world we are planning for
today will not exist in this form
tomorrow. 3All things are only
transitory; 4there is nothing per-
manent except change. 5Because
things are the way they are, things
will not stay the way they are.
6Even Mount Everest—the perfect
symbol of indomitable, unyielding,
massively solid reality—is “grow-
ing” a quarter of an inch a year, as
the landmass of India pushes un-
der Asia.
7Nothing is fixed, forever and
forever and forever. The light is
always changing, the sea does not
cease to grind down rock. Genera-
tions do not cease to be born, and
we are responsible to them because
we are the only witnesses they
have. The sea rises, the light fails,
lovers cling to each other, and
children cling to us. The moment
CHAPTER 1.1. Abraham Lincoln. 1.2. Philip Crosby. 1.3. Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe. 1.4. Heraclitus. 1.5. Bertolt Brecht. 1.6. Sharon Salzberg. 1.7. James
Baldwin. 1.8. Paul Hawken. CHAPTER 2.1. Ovid. 2.2. John Muir. 2.3. Frie-
drich Nietzsche. CHAPTER 3.1. Alan Lightman. 3.2. Alan Lightman.
18
we cease to hold each other, the
sea engulfs us and the light goes
out.
8All is connected. No one thing
can change by itself.
2 All things change; nothing
perishes. 2This grand show is
eternal. It is always sunrise some-
where; the dew is never all dried at
once; a shower is forever falling;
vapor is ever rising. Eternal sun-
rise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn
and gloaming, on sea and conti-
nents and islands, each in its turn,
as the round earth rolls.
3Everything goes, everything
comes back; eternally rolls the wheel
of being. Everything dies, every-
thing blossoms again; eternally
runs the year of being. Everything
breaks, everything is joined anew;
eternally the same house of being
is built. Everything parts, every-
thing greets every other thing
again; eternally the ring of being
remains faithful to itself.
3 The world never stops. 2It
changes every instant. You
can’t see the world underneath, the
world that is about to be. Then it change, and sometimes I think we
unfolds. She changes into a butter- have not fully grasped just how
fly and flies out of an open win- profound that change has been.
dow. 3If you realize that all things 4Nothing—including religion—can

change, there is nothing you will ever be the same again. 5The day is
try to hold on to. over when what emerges from one
part of the planet can be a religious

4 Nothing is built on stone; all

is built on sand, but we must
build as if the sand were stone.
answer for the whole world.
6In a time of drastic change it

is the learners who inherit the fu-

2The dialectic between change and ture. The learned usually find them-
continuity is a painful but deeply selves equipped to live in a world
instructive one. that no longer exists.
3We live in a time of enormous

CHAPTER 3.3. Lao-tzu. CHAPTER 4.1. Jorge Luis Borges. 4.2. Adrienne Rich.
4.3. J. Thomas Schieffer. 4.4. Karen Armstrong. 4.5. Jack Miles. 4.6. Eric Hof-
fer.

19
 I was sitting in the park and three unknown people
came. They arrested me. 2They put me in prison. I
didn’t know where I was, what the problem was or the
reason that they were holding me. They put me in interrogation. They were
asking me my name, where I’m from, and about my family. Of course, I felt
lost—you don’t know the time, you don’t know what day it is, and you
don’t know where you are. The situation was very difficult. 3I felt helpless.
4There would be seven to ten interrogators pressuring me to talk, telling

me that if I did, they would release me. I would tell them that I didn’t have
anything to confess. They claimed that I did. They put me in a chair with
my hands tied and my feet tied for long periods of time. My hands and feet
turned blue.
5They threatened to kill my spouse. 6I refused to submit to the fear they

tried to create in me. 7I had done nothing. 8I told them, 9“I deny you the
power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status does
not alter that fact. You cannot demean me.”
10They began to burn me all over my body with electric shocks. They

put carbonated mineral water up my nose. They put polyethelene in my

eyes. They made me so I couldn’t breathe. 11Flailing, I was swept up in the
relentless momentum of panic. I was not only afraid, but worse, I was
afraid of being afraid. I fought the fear and tangled with it, hating myself for
my powerlessness in the face of it.
12They put me in a tub with ice water. I vomited blood.
13They said, “We can kill you.” I said, “Go ahead. Do it. But I will not

1. Rafael López Santíz Conseta. 2. Arifa Salman. 3. Tam d. Nguyen. 4. Arifa

Salman. 5. Said Ali al-Musawi. 6. Abid Raza Zaidi. 7. Abid Raza Zaidi. 8.
Terry Waite. 9. Walter Wink. 10. Rafael López Santíz Conseta. 11. Sharon
Salzberg. 12. Rafael López Santíz Conseta. 13. Abid Raza Zaidi.

20
tell a lie. 14You can harm my body, you can harm my mind, but you can’t
harm my soul. That is mine.”
15They said, “We will make you wish to die and it will not happen.”

They stripped me naked. One of them told me he would rape me. 16They
were harassing me verbally, humiliating me, and one of the guards beat me
with a rubber stick. 17Said I was an enemy. 18Swore and cursed me, words
that I cannot repeat now.
19I opened my mouth to say something and then closed it. There was

nothing to say.
20“What kind of a person are you,” I heard them say to me.
21After that I began to see terrible things. I saw devils dancing fever-

ishly. I saw that lightning had eyes and searched to strike down little chil-
dren.
22The lights were kept on twenty-four hours a day, so it was impossible

to sleep. But 23I was completely in the dark. 24 I had no access to informa-
tion or any idea about what was happening outside. There was nothing I
could do.
25All I could do was wait to die.

14. Terry Waite. 15. Ameen Saeed al-Sheik. 16. Jora Murodov. 17. Åsne Seier-
stad. 18. Jora Murodov. 19. Eboo Patel. 20. Yehuda Amichai. 21. Amy Tan.
22. Wangari Maathai. 23. Bede Griffiths. 24. Wangari Maathai. 25. Arifa Sal-
man.

21
 W E M U S T S T A Y

C L O S E T O T H E G R O U N D

1 Every morning the world is

created. 2All has been conse-
crated. The creatures in the forest
maybe we will get lost.
8We evolved as creatures knit-

ted into the fabric of nature, and

know this, the earth does, the seas
do, the clouds know as does the
heart full of love.
3Remain true to the earth. 4The
earth itself is the living scripture to
be shared by all.
5It is a wholesome and neces-
without its intimate truths, we
can find ourselves unraveling. 9Our
hearts, away from nature, become
hard; lack of respect for growing,
living things, soon leads to lack of
respect for humans too.

sary thing for us to turn again to

the earth and in the contemplation
of her beauties to know of wonder
2 The Earth watches us at night.
2Look deep, deep into

nature, and then you will under-

and humility. 6The land is our moth- stand everything better. 3Nature is
er, the rivers our blood. 7We be- always hinting at us. It hints over
long to the ground. It is our power. and over again. And suddenly we
And we must stay close to it. Or take the hint.

CHAPTER 1.1. Mary Oliver. 1.2. Catherine of Siena. 1.3. Friedrich Nietzsche.
1.4. Leonard Marks. 1.5. Rachel Carson. 1.6. Mary Brave Bird. 1.7. Narritjin
Maymuru Yirrkala. 1.8. Diane Ackerman. 1.9. Luther Standing Bear. CHAP-
TER 2.1. Dreamsong. 2.2. Albert Einstein. 2.3. Robert Frost.

22
 W E A R E
C A R E T A K E R S O F T H I S P L A N E T
1 Come closer. This song is a
cry for help.
2All over the world there are
now signs that nature is no longer
in balance. 3Everywhere we look,
human activities are tearing at the
very fabric of life. 4Billions of trees
are dying, the habitations of ani-
mals and birds are laid waste, rivers
grow shallow and dry up, marvel-
ous landscapes are disappearing
forever. Humanity is endowed with
creativity in order to multiply that
which has been given us; we have
not created, but destroyed. The
earth is becoming ever poorer and
uglier.
5Whatever befalls the earth,
befalls also the children of the earth.
6If future generations are to
remember us with gratitude rather
than contempt, we must leave
them something more than the
miracles of our technology. We
must leave them a glimpse of the
world as it was in the beginning,
not just after we got through with
it. 7To waste, to destroy, our natu-
ral resources, to skin and exhaust
the land, will result in undermining
CHAPTER 1.1. Margaret Atwood. 1.2. Dan Evahema. 1.3. David Suzuki. 1.4.
Anton Chekhov. 1.5. Oren Lyons. 1.6. Lyndon Johnson. 1.7. Theodore Roo-
sevelt. CHAPTER 2.1. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. 2.2. Wendell Berry. CHAP-
TER 3.1. Alice Waters. 3.2. Wallace Stegner. 3.3. Aldo Leopold. 3.4. Thomas
Berry.
23
T H E
in the days of our children the very
prosperity which we ought by right
to hand down to them amplified.
2 The supreme reality of our
time is the vulnerability of our
planet. 2To cherish what remains
of it and to foster its renewal is our
only legitimate hope of survival.
3 All the places we inhabit were
once wildernesses. 2Something
will have gone out of us if we ever
let the remaining wilderness be
destroyed; if we permit the last
virgin forests to be turned into
comic books and plastic cigarette
cases; if we drive the few remain-
ing members of the wild species
into zoos or to extinction; if we
pollute the last clear air and dirty
the last clean streams and push our
paved roads through the last of the
silence.
3We abuse land because we
regard it as a commodity belong-
ing to us. When we see land as a
community to which we belong,
we may begin to use it with love
and respect. 4To be alienated from
this community is to become desti-
tute in all that makes us human. To
damage this community is to di-
minish our own existence.
5The frog does not drink up
of water remains constant; there is
never a drop more, never a drop
less. This is a story of circular in-
finity, of a planet birthing itself.
3We have never really learned

the pond in which it lives. how important water is to us. We

6Take only what you need,
7give thanks for that, 8and leave the
land as you found it. 9Be more like
the birds of the air. 10There is
nothing in which the birds differ
understand it, but we do not re-
spect it. 4If its life-giving flow is
stopped, or it is polluted, all else
will die.
5Water links us to our neigh-

more from us than the way in bor in a way more profound and
which they can build and yet leave complex than any other. 6Yet in an
a landscape as it was before. age when we have forgotten our ori-
gins and are blind even to our most

4 Thousands have lived without

love, not one without water.
2Water is the best of all things.
3When you drink the water,
remember the spring.
essential needs for survival, water
along with other resources has be-
come the victim of our indiffer-
ence. 7More than one-half of the
world’s major rivers are being seri-
ously depleted and polluted, de-

5 Water is life’s matter and ma-

trix, mother and medium. 2It
has no taste, no color, no odor; it
cannot be defined. Not necessary
to life, but rather life itself. 3The
grading and poisoning the sur-
rounding ecosystems, thus threat-
ening the health and livelihood of
people who depend upon them.
8The crisis is just as severe (if less

water cycle and the life cycle are obviously immediate) as any war-
one. time crisis ever faced.

6 All the water that will ever be

is, right now. 2Between earth
and earth’s atmosphere, the amount
7 We come from water; we live
with water; 2we exist mostly
as water. 3We innately share its

CHAPTER 3.5. Native American saying. 3.6. Arapaho saying. 3.7. Winona
LaDuke. 3.8. Arapaho saying. 3.9. Jesus. 3.10. Robert Lynd. CHAPTER 4.1.
W. H. Auden. 4.2. Pindar. 4.3. Chinese saying. CHAPTER 5.1. Albert Szent-
Gyorgyi. 5.2. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. 5.3. Jacques Cousteau. CHAPTER 6.1.
National Geographic. 6.2. Linda Hogan. 6.3. William Ashworth. 6.4. Frank
Tenorio. 6.5. John Thorson. 6.6. Rachel Carson. 6.7. Ismail Serageldin. 6.8.
Jim Wright. CHAPTER 7.1. Kanaratitake (Loraine Canoe). 7.2. Masuru Emoto.
7.3. Eric Alan.

24
wisdom.
4Nothing in the world is more
flexible and yielding than water.
Yet when it attacks the firm and
the strong, none can withstand it,
because they have no way to
change it.
5Like water, be gentle and
strong. Be gentle enough to follow
the natural paths of the earth, and
strong enough to rise up and re-
shape the world.
8 Traffic-choked streets, skies
nested in smog, choking with
the acids of industry. . . . 2The air is
full of a farewell.
3What we need now is fresh air,
fresh air, fresh air!
4Our bodies were made to thrive
only in pure air. 5There is nothing
radical about it.
9
this.
A tree was killed to supply the
paper on which I am writing
2Except during the nine months
before drawing their first breath, no
human being manages their affairs as
well as a tree does. 3A tree is beau-
tiful, but what’s more, like water
and the sun, it is essential. Life on
earth is inconceivable without trees.
CHAPTER 7.4. Lao-tzu. 7.5. Brenda Peterson. CHAPTER 8.1. John Steinbeck.
8.2. Kathleen Raine. 8.3. Fyodor Dostoevsky. 8.4. John Muir. 8.5. Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr. CHAPTER 9.1. Richard Kiley. 9.2. George Bernard Shaw. 9.3.
Anton Chekhov. 9.4. Franklin Roosevelt. 9.5. Federico Garcia Lorca. 9.6.
Qwatsinas (Edward Moody). CHAPTER 10.1. Barbara Ward. 10.2. Thalassa
Cruso. 10.3. Henry Beston.
25
There can be neither civilization
nor happiness if forests crash
down under the axe, if the climate
is harsh and severe, if people are
also harsh and severe.
4 Forests are the lungs of our
land, purifying the air and giv-
ing fresh strength to our people.
(5Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.) 6We
must protect the forests for our
children, grandchildren and chil-
dren yet to be born. We must pro-
tect the forests for those who can’t
speak for themselves, such as the
birds, animals, and fish.
10 We have forgotten how to
be good guests, how to
walk lightly on the earth as its
other creatures do. 2The insects,
birds and animals are well aware of
our presence no matter how softly
we may tread, and they follow our
every move although we cannot
see them. 3They move finished and
complete, gifted with extensions of
the senses we have lost or never
attained, living by voices we shall
never hear. They are not under-
lings; they are other nations, caught
with ourselves in the net of life and
time, fellow prisoners of the splen-
dor and travail of the Earth.
4If all the beasts were gone, we
would die from a great loneliness
of spirit, for whatever happens to
the beasts also happens to us. All
things are connected.
11 Wolves accept the life they
are given. They do not look
around them and wish for a differ-
ent life, or shorten their lives re-
senting the humans, or even fear us
any more than is appropriate. They
are efficient. They deal with what
they encounter and then go on.
Minute by minute. One day to the
next.
2Think of the genius of the
animals, every one truly what it is:
wolf, gnat, fox, minnow, swallow,
each made of light. They know
(better than we do) how to live in
the places where they live. 3Every
animal knows far more than we do.
4Ask the beasts, and they will
teach you. 5If you talk to them, they
will talk with you, and you will
know each other. If you do not
talk to them, you will not know
them, and what you do not know,
you will fear. What one fears, one
destroys.
6 Everything should be our
teacher.
CHAPTER 10.4. Seattle (Sealth). CHAPTER 11.1. Louise Erdrich. 11.2. Wendell
Berry. 11.3. Yellow Wolf. 11.4. The Book of Job. 11.5. Dan George (Geswanouth
Slahoot). 11.6. Morihei Ueshiba. 11.7. Stephen L. Clark. 11.8. Muhammad.
11.9. Victor Hugo. 11.10. Isha Upanishad. CHAPTER 12.1. George Bernard Shaw.
12.2. Abraham Lincoln. 12.3. Alice Walker.
26
7If we are to understand the
animals with whom we share the
world, we need to watch them,
interact with them, without preju-
dice. Understanding them, we may
also understand ourselves a little
more. By seeing what constrains
and motivates our kindred we may,
perhaps, discover what the morals
and manners of the human beast
might be.
8There is not an animal on the
earth, nor a flying creature on two
wings, but they are people like
unto us. 9From the oyster to the
eagle, from the swine to the tiger,
all animals are to be found in us.
They are the portrayal of our virtues
and vices made manifest to our
eyes, the visible reflections of our
souls.
10Those who see all creatures
within themselves and themselves
in all creatures know no fear. Those
who see all creatures in themselves
and themselves in all creatures know
no grief.
12 Animals are my friends. 2I
am in favor of animal
rights as well as human rights. That
is the way of a whole human being.
3The animals of the world exist
for their own reasons. They were
not made for humans any more
than black people were made for
white, or women created for men.
4If a group of beings from an-
other planet were to land on Earth
—beings who considered them-
selves as superior to us as we feel
ourselves to be to other animals—
would we concede them the rights
over us that we assume over other
animals?
5We have enslaved the rest of
the animal creation, and have
treated our distant cousins in fur
and feathers so badly that beyond
doubt, if they were able to formu-
late a religion, they would depict
the Devil in human form.
them as we like.) 7The question is
rather, “Can they suffer?” 8All the
arguments to prove humanity’s su-
periority cannot shatter this hard
fact: in suffering the animals are
our equals. 9They are not machines;
they feel.
14 Love the animals. 2Encom-
pass them with your mercy
and compassion. 3Not to hurt our
humble brothers and sisters in fur,
feather or fin is our first duty to
them, but to stop there is not
enough. We have a higher mission:
To be of service to them whenever
they require it. 4A good deed done
to an animal is as meritorious as a
good deed done to a human being

13 Animals, whom we have

made our slaves, we do
not like to consider our equal. 2But
(while an act of cruelty to an ani-
mal is as bad as an act of cruelty to
a human being).
life is life. (3Oneness is the secret 5We must fight against the

of everything.) 4There is no differ- spirit of unconscious cruelty with

ence between a cat or a human. The
idea of difference is a human con-
ception for our own advantage.
5The question to ask should
not be: Do we have something in
common—reason, self-conscious-
ness, a soul—with other animals?
(6With the corollary that, if we do
not, then we are entitled to treat
which we treat the animals. 6Their
fate is indissolubly connected with
our own. 7The ways in which we treat
animals will be reflected in how we
relate to one another. 8As long as
we massacre animals, we will kill
each other; 9as long as there are
slaughterhouses, there will be bat-
tlefields; 10as long as human beings

CHAPTER 12.4. George Bernard Shaw. 12.5. William Inge. CHAPTER 13.1.
Charles Darwin. 13.2. Sri Aurobindo. 13.3. Vivekananda. 13.4. Sri Aurobindo.
13.5. Jeremy Bentham. 13.6. J. M. Coetzee. 13.7. Jeremy Bentham. 13.8. Peter
Singer. 13.9. Charles Montesquieu. CHAPTER 14.1. Fyodor Dostoevsky. 14.2.
Ibn Ata’Allah. 14.3. Francis of Assisi. 14.4. Muhammad. 14.5. Albert Schweit-
zer. 14.6. Immanuel Kant. 14.7. William Greider. 14.8. Pythagoras. 14.9. Leo
Tolstoy. 14.10. Isaac Bashevis Singer.

27
go on shedding the blood of ani- us and all living things on the
mals, there will never be any peace. planet are to continue, we, who
still remember how we must live,

15 We are bleeding at the

roots because we are cut
off from the earth and sun and
stars. 2We have all been split away
from the earth, each other, our-
selves. 3The earth dries up and
withers, the world languishes and
must join together. 6The challenges
are great, but if we accept individ-
ual responsibility and make sus-
tainable choices, we will rise to the
challenges, and we will become
part of the positive tide of change.
7We are caretakers of this plan-

withers; the heavens languish to- et. It is our duty to pray and work
8

gether with the earth. always for harmony between hu-

4We need to cultivate a univer- manity and earth, so that the earth
sal responsibility for one another will bloom once more.
and the planet we share. 5If all of

CHAPTER 15.1. D. H. Lawrence. 15.2. Susan Griffin. 15.3. The Book of Isaiah.
15.4. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 15.5. Leslie Marmon Silko. 15.6. Severn Cullis-
Suzuki. 15.7. Brooke Medicine Eagle. 15.8. Hopi saying.

28
 W
hen they put me in this cell, 2that’s when I knew it
was for real. 3That was the first time I suspected
that everything had already been decided.
4Nobody could reach me.
5There was nowhere to turn.
6Why was I incarcerated? 7Did I resort to violence? 8Make any physical

threat to the political leadership? 9I have not been told the evidence against
me. 10It’s very easy to say someone has done something if you don’t give the
evidence.
11There is, and never has been, a case to be made. 12I sit here because of

my ideals. 13I’m a political prisoner. 14I am not the only one, there are thou-
sands. 15Open your newspaper—any day of the week—and you will find a
report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tor-
tured or executed because their opinions or religion are unacceptable to the
government. 16Just ask the silent ghosts who walked through these same
doors before me.
17When you know what you're supposed to be doing, it's somebody

else's job to kill you. 18A simple prison bed is deadly if you remove the mat-
tress and force a prisoner to sleep on the iron frame night after night after
night. 19Very convenient, very simple.
20This cell was once painted red so the light would stab the prisoner’s eyes.

1. Frank Darabont. 2. Frank Darabont. 3. Marija Knežević. 4. Binjamin Wil-

komirski. 5. Yvonne Swan. 6. Michael Fernandez. 7. Audrey Gillan. 8. Audrey
Gillan. 9. Audrey Gillan. 10. Mahmoud Abu Rideh. 11. Wangari Maathai. 12.
Mordecai Vanunu. 13. Antonio Gramsci. 14. Adam Kulberg. 15. Peter Benen-
son. 16. Kelli Russell Agodon. 17. Bernice Johnson Reagon. 18. Vladimir Buk-
ovsky. 19. Vladimir Bukovsky. 20. Said Ali al-Musawi.

29
21Now the red has been painted over with white. Where I have scraped away
the white paint—22a dot or a line at the beginning of each day—23the red
color has appeared, as if I wrote in blood. 24The walls have memory. 25I live
my life in red here, 26where I will have been, where I will not have been.
27I never thought I would survive. 28I not only survived; I outlived—

sheer miracle—the demons.

29My survival has been their failure.

21. Åsne Seierstad. 22. Åsne Seierstad. 23. Åsne Seierstad. 24. Marigo Alex-
opoulou. 25. André Velter. 26. Kurt Drawert. 27. Sabab, an Iraqi man. 28.
Frederick Franck. 29. Tony Hoagland.

30
 W E B E L O N G

T O T H E U N I V E R S E

1 We do not belong to ourselves.

We belong to the universe.
2We are creation’s property, its
desires and to affection for a few
persons nearest to us.
10We are here to awaken from

particles, its clay as we fall into this the illusion of our separateness,
life. 3Our ancestry stretches back 11to free ourselves from this prison

through the life-forms and into the
stars, back to the beginnings of the
primeval fireball. 4We come spin-
ning out of nothingness, scattering
stars like dust.
5We are stardust.
6There are only the two direc-
by widening our circle of compas-
sion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its
beauty. 12Flow down and down in
always widening rings of being.

tions: coming in and going out.

And all who take one take both.
7We are all visitors to this time, this
place. We are just passing through.
Our purpose here is to observe, to
learn, to grow, to love, and then we
2 At this place, at this moment
of time, all humankind is us,
whether we like it not. 2I am in you
and you in me. 3All from one clay
are made; in all one Light shines.
One breath pervades all.
4We meet no Stranger, but

return home. Ourself.

8To be human or not be at all 5Everything one does as an in-

is the question. 9A human being is dividual affects the whole. 6What-

a part of the whole called by us
universe, a part limited in time and
space. We experience ourselves, our
thoughts and feelings as something
separated from the rest, a kind of
optical delusion of our conscious-
ness. This is a kind of prison for
us, restricting us to our personal
ever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly. I can never be what I
ought to be until you are what
you ought to be. 7My humanity is
bound up in yours, for we can only
be human together. 8I appeal to
you and to all citizens of the world:
remember your humanity.

CHAPTER 1.1. Buckminster Fuller. 1.2. Jane Kenyon. 1.3. Brian Swimme. 1.4.
Jalaluddin Rumi. 1.5. Joni Mitchell. 1.6. Wendell Berry. 1.7. Australian aborigi-
nal saying. 1.8. Frederick Franck. 1.9. Albert Einstein. 1.10. Thich Nhat Hanh.
1.11. Albert Einstein. 1.12. Jalaluddin Rumi. CHAPTER 2.1. Samuel Beckett.
2.2. William Blake. 2.3. Adi Granth. 2.4. Emily Dickinson. 2.5. Serge Kahili
King. 2.6. Martin Luther King, Jr. 2.7. Desmond Tutu. 2.8. Joseph Rotblat.

31
 9We are all citizens of one me almost indistinguishable.)
world, we are all of one blood. We 12Each of us must know in our

are all equally human. 10In a world minds and believe in our hearts:
of prayer, we are all equal in the 13Our lives are all different and yet

sense that each of us is a unique the same.

person, with a unique perspective 14Who today stands ready to

on the world, a member of a class accept the solemn equality of peo-

of one. (11Prayer and living deeply, ples?
richly, and fully have become for

CHAPTER 2.9. John Comenius. 2.10. W. H. Auden. 2.11. John Shelby Spong.
2.12. Larry P. Aitken. 2.13. Anne Frank. 2.14. Huston Smith.

32
 I can't remember how old I was, but I used to stand in
front of the mirror, trying to imagine what it would be
like to be dead. I thought I'd have some sense of it if I
looked far enough into my own eyes, as if my gaze, meeting itself, would
make an absence, and exclude me.
2When those who have the power to name and to socially construct

reality choose not to see you or hear you—describe the world and you are
not in it—there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked in
the mirror and saw nothing. It takes some strength of soul to resist this
void, this non-being, into which you are thrust, and to stand up, demanding
to be seen and heard.
3Sometimes, just to be alive is enough.

1. Lawrence Raab. 2. Adrienne Rich. 3. Shunryu Suzuki.

33
 W E B E C O M E

W H O W E A R E

1 I am nobody but myself. (2Do

I contradict myself? Very well
then I contradict myself. I am large,
I contain multitudes. 3Forgive me
for continually proving it.)
4To be nobody but yourself in
a world which is doing its best,
night and day, to make you every-
body else means to fight the hard-
est battle which any human being
can fight and never stop fighting.
5Most of us are other people.
Our thoughts are someone else’s
opinions, our lives a mimicry, our
passions a quotation. 6We are so
accustomed to disguise ourselves
to others that in the end we be-
come disguised to ourselves.
7It takes courage to grow up
and become who we really are.
8When we go through profound
experiences, they change us. We
risk our relationships with friends
and family. They may not like the
direction we have taken or may feel
threatened or judged by our deci-
sions. They may wonder what hap-
pened to the person they thought
they once knew.
9 Know
10Raise
this and carry on.
your consciousness to a cer-
tain level so that you will not give
up or succumb. If your conscious-
ness is at such a level, you are will-
ing to do what you believe is the
right thing—popular opinion not-
withstanding. 11Remain unbowed.
2 I am what time, circumstance,
history, have made of me,
certainly, but I am also much more
than that. So are we all. 2Our life is
our art. 3The shaping of our own
life is our own work. 4The final
forming of our own character lies in
our own hands. 5It is a thing of
beauty, or a thing of shame, as we
ourselves make it.
6Accept no one’s definition of
your life; define yourself. 7You
have a purpose, spirit and sacred-
ness. 8Follow the grain in your own
wood. 9Learn to be what you are,
and learn to resign with a good
grace all that you are not. 10All is
well with you even though every-
thing seems to go dead wrong, if
you are square with yourself. Re-

CHAPTER 1.1. Ralph Ellison. 1.2. Walt Whitman. 1.3. Niels Frank. 1.4. e. e.
cummings. 1.5. Oscar Wilde. 1.6. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. 1.7. e. e.
cummings. 1.8. Wangari Maathai. 1.9. Phra Thepwethi. 1.10. Wangari Maathai.
1.11. Wangari Maathai. CHAPTER 2.1. James Baldwin. 2.2. Jean LaMarr. 2.3.
Henry Ware. 2.4. Anne Frank. 2.5. Henry Ware. 2.6. Harvey Fierstein. 2.7.
Dennis Banks. 2.8. Howard Thurman. 2.9. Henri-Frédéric Amiel. 2.10. Ma-
hatma Gandhi.

34
versely, all is not well with you al-
though everything outwardly may
seem to go right, if you are not
square with yourself.
3 There is just one life for each
of us: our own. 2Does the
river try to please a tree? Does the
bird try to please a stone? In na-
ture, things are simply who or what
they are.
4 You become. 2Become again
and again. 3It takes a long
time. That’s why it doesn’t often
happen to people who break easily,
CHAPTER 3.1. Euripides. 3.2. Paula D’Arcy. CHAPTER 4.1. Margery Williams.
4.2. Arne Johnsson. 4.3. Margery Williams. CHAPTER 5.1. Faith Baldwin. 5.2.
Henry David Thoreau. 5.3. Leah Arendt.
35
or have sharp edges, or who have
to be carefully kept. Generally by
the time you are Real, most of your
hair has been loved off, and your
eyes drop out and you get loose in
the joints and very shabby. But
these things don’t matter at all, be-
cause once you are Real, you can’t
be ugly, except to people who
don’t understand.
5 Character builds slowly, but it
can be torn down with in-
credible swiftness. 2Stand inside
yourself. 3Do not do what you
would undo if caught.
 I am haunted by waters. 2Many a time have I merely
closed my eyes at the end of yet another troublesome
day and soaked my bruised psyche in wild water, rivers
remembered and rivers imagined. Rivers course through my dreams, rivers
cold and fast, rivers well-known and rivers nameless, rivers that seem like
ribbons of blue water twisting through wide valleys, narrow rivers folded in
layers of darkening shadows, rivers that have eroded down deep into a
mountain’s belly, sculpted the land. 3I have never seen a river that I could
not love.
4There are many ways to salvation, and one of them is to follow a river.
5It seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself,
6the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing.

1. Norman Maclean. 2. Harry Middleton. 3. Roderick Haig-Brown. 4. David

Brower. 5. Laura Gilpin. 6. Jean Giraudoux.

36
 T H E O N L Y J O U R N E Y

I S T H E O N E W I T H I N

1 The only journey is the one

within, 2which leads to an un-
known, secret place. 3The journey
from having been born human to
having become Human—4you have
been on it since you were born and
did not know.
5A sharpened edge of a razor,
hard to traverse, a difficult path is
this. 6There is no short cut.
7Have we forgotten the human?
8What does it mean to be human?
I’m not sure because I haven’t got
there yet. 9But this is what I feel:
10To be human is to learn what it is
do to try and make things be the
way our minds tell us they “ought”
to be.
3 Every day is a journey, 2a
journey of a thousand miles.
3To begin, begin. 4Just start from
where you find yourself. 5There is
no “how”, one just does it.
6Be simple and always take the
next step. 7The next move is always
the test. 8You needn’t see it in ad-
vance, but you can look back at it
afterwards.
9Your footsteps are the road,

to be human and practice it. 11It
means—must mean—to see each
other’s humanity. 12It is to give
yourself for things far greater than
yourself.
and nothing more; there is no road,
the road is made by walking. By
walking you make the road, and
upon glancing behind you see the
path that never will be trod again.

2 The spiritual journey changes

us to the core of our being. If
it didn’t, it wouldn’t be real. 2At its
heart, it is about surrender, letting
go. It’s about letting go of our at-
tachments and our fears, letting go
of all the pushing and pulling we
4 Nobody’s road is better than
yours. Nobody else’s road is
yours. The important thing is to
follow it. 2Your feet will bring you
to where your heart is.
5 Friend, be attentive as you

CHAPTER 1.1. Rainer Maria Rilke. 1.2. Luther Standing Bear. 1.3. Juliet Hollis-
ter. 1.4. Walt Whitman. 1.5. Katha Upanishad. 1.6. Beverly Sills. 1.7. Leonardo
Lazarte. 1.8. Alexander Eliot. 1.9. Václav Havel. 1.10. Robert Aitken. 1.11. Elie
Wiesel. 1.12. Joan Chittister. CHAPTER 2.1. Wayne Teasdale. 2.2. Ram Dass.
CHAPTER 3.1. Matsuo Bashō. 3.2. Lao-tzu. 3.3. William Wordsworth. 3.4.
August Wilson. 3.5. Carl Jung. 3.6. Carl Jung. 3.7. Seamus Heaney. 3.8. Carl
Jung. 3.9. Antonio Machado. CHAPTER 4.1. Edward Field. 4.2. Celtic saying.
CHAPTER 5.1. Oglala Sioux saying.

37
walk. 2Be not afraid of going there is no longer any turning back.
slowly, be afraid only of standing That is the point that must be
still. 3Little by little, one travels far. reached.
4If you go as far as you can

see, you will then see enough to go

even farther. 8 It is good to have an end to
journey towards, but it is the
journey that matters in the end.

6 The way out into the light

often looks dark, the way that
goes ahead often looks as if it went
2The journey itself is home.
3It is a strange thing to come

home. 4To find that which was

back. 2Do not falter or shrink. 3You
must travel in the direction of your
fear. 4You must embrace pain and
burn it as fuel for your journey.
5Keep your feet moving. 6There
always there. To be that which you
never were. To meet anew that
which never left. To return, 5and
know the place for the first time.

is risk and truth to yourself and the

world before you. 7To live without
risk is to risk not living. 8Be able, at
any moment, to sacrifice what you
are for what you could become.
9Keep going.
9 Remember always that you
are just a visitor here, a trav-
eler passing through. Your stay is
but short and the moment of your
departure unknown. 2Stay open and
adore.
3The secret is to let the wind

7 Wherever you go, go with all

your heart. 2There is a path to
the top of even the highest moun-
tain. 3Beyond the mountains there
are mountains again. 4No matter
how far you go the horizon is still
way beyond you.
5From a certain point onward
blow its dust all over your body, to
let it go on blowing, to step lightly,
lightly all the way through. 4The
life of this world is wind. Wind-
blown we come and wind-blown
we go away. All that we look on is
wind-fall. All we remember is
wind.

CHAPTER 5.2. Chinese saying. 5.3. J. R. R. Tolkien. 5.4. John Wooden.

CHAPTER 6.1. Lao-tzu. 6.2. Nixon Waterman. 6.3. John Berryman. 6.4. Kenji
Miyazawa. 6.5. Morgan Freeman. 6.6. Seamus Heaney. 6.7. Pope Pius XII.
6.8. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 6.9. Winston Churchill. CHAPTER 7.1. Confucius.
7.2. Afghan saying. 7.3. Haitian saying. 7.4. Zora Neale Hurston. 7.5. Franz
Kafka. CHAPTER 8.1. Ursula LeGuin. 8.2. Matsuo Bashō. 8.3. Salma Lagerlöf.
8.4. Ramikrishnananda. 8.5. T. S. Eliot. CHAPTER 9.1. Dhammavadaka. 9.2.
Edward Field. 9.3. James Wright. 9.4. Charles Wright.

38
 P rison is no fairy-tale world. 2They say on paper that
everything is fine, but in reality it is not so. 3You’re an
animal in a cage, 4dank, cinder block room, 5an 8-by-12
prison cell, in solitary confinement. 6You’re always cold, your fingers white
and numb. 7Food is bad, cooked out of rotten products. It is not food that a
human being can eat. There isn’t clean drinking water.
8For so long I’ve lived in here, penned up. 9Fresh winds softly blow for

someone, gentle sunsets warm them through; I listen to the scrape and turn
of hateful keys.
10I have come to realize that this is my life. 11I have no other place. 12I

have found what I love here. 13I have come to know what was and is worth
fighting for.
14Only I will never see another butterfly.

1. Frank Darabont. 2. Jora Murodov. 3. Jimmy Hoffa. 4. Jessica Pupovac. 5.

Jessica Pupovac. 6. Sally Brampton. 7. Jora Mudodov. 8. Pavel Friedman. 9.
Anna Akhmatova. 10. Åsne Seierstad. 11. Rosa Alice Branco. 12. Pavel Fried-
man. 13. Ronnie Farley. 14. Pavel Friedman.

39
 D A R E

Y O U R Y E S

1 The spiritual quest begins,

for most of us, as a search for
meaning. 2What matters is not the
meaning of life in general, but
rather the specific meaning of our
own life at a given moment. 3We
receive the gift of life as a possibil-
ity. Only in the process of being do
we get to know what our life is
about.
4The search is what any of us
would undertake if we were not
sunk in the everydayness of our
own life. To become aware of the
possibility of the search is to be
onto something. Not to be onto
something is to be in despair.
5We are not here accidentally—
we are here meaningfully. There is a
purpose behind us. The whole in-
tends to do something through us.
3Meaning makes a great many
things endurable—perhaps every-
thing. 4Our life is shaped by the
end we live for. We are made in the
image of what we desire.
3 Often finding meaning is not
about doing things differently;
it is about seeing familiar things in
new ways. 2If we could see the
miracle of a single flower clearly,
our whole life would change. 3No-
body sees a flower—really—it is so
small it takes time—we haven’t
time—to see takes time, like to
have a friend takes time.
4If we look deeply into a flow-
er, what do we see? Sunshine, a
cloud, the earth, minerals, the gar-
dener, the complete cosmos. Why?
Because the flower is composed of
these non-flower elements. And

2 We are responsible for living

our own life and for “finding
ourselves.” If we persist in shifting our
like this flower, we too are made up
of everything else.
5There is nothing you can see

responsibility to somebody else, we that is not a flower. 6Everything is

fail to find out the meaning of our
own existence. 2Meaninglessness in-
hibits fullness of life and is there-
fore equivalent to illness.
meaning, and meaning is every-
thing.
4 We do not find the meaning

CHAPTER 1.1. Marilyn Ferguson. 1.2. Victor Frankl. 1.3. Annelie Keil. 1.4.
Walker Percy. 1.5. Osho. CHAPTER 2.1. Thomas Merton. 2.2. Carl Jung. 2.3.
Carl Jung. 2.4. Thomas Merton. CHAPTER 3.1. Rachel Naomi Remen. 3.2.
Gautama Buddha. 3.3. Georgia O’Keeffe. 3.4. Thich Nhat Hanh. 3.5. Matsuo
Bashō. 3.6. Ernest Gellner. CHAPTER 4.1. Thomas Merton.

40
of life by ourselves alone—we find
it with another. 2We cannot “be”
by ourselves alone; we must be
with everything else.
your Yes—and experience a mean-
ing. You repeat your Yes—and all
things acquire a meaning. When
everything has a meaning, how can
you live anything but a Yes.

5 Life is an adventure. 2The big

question is whether you are
going to be able to say a hearty
4Yes is the only living thing.
5After the final no there comes a

yes and on that yes the future of

yes to your adventure. 3You dare the world hangs.

CHAPTER 4.2. Thich Nhat Hanh. CHAPTER 5.1. Mother Teresa. 5.2. Joseph
Campbell. 5.3. Dag Hammarskjöld. 5.4. e. e. cummings. 5.5. Wallace Stevens.

41
 I n prison you will do anything to keep your mind occu-
pied. 2I have wanted nothing more than for my mind to
center on a still point.
3Words have saved me. 4They are all I have.
5Other people’s words. 6Other people’s words keep me alive. 7They are

my sustenance. 8All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing

them for the first time. 9I’ve collected them. Don’t ask me why. 10Now
quotations are stored in my mind as ready armor amid the struggle of this
turbulent existence. 11I’m just trying to remember them. 12Each moment
new: 13Think about the quote. 14Create a mental picture of the quote.
15Write it down.
16It’s all quotes. 17I write the words I remember. 18I say only what I

remember. 19It’s really hard. I've never had to go so deep inside myself
before and bring out the words. 20I make myself believe that my thoughts
are crystal clear. The strain invigorates me, I am super-concentrated.
21Sitting in silence here, moving my hand, calling up these English

words, shifting them around, weaving them into phrases, I feel at ease, in
control. 22A word after a word after a word is power.
23Sometimes I look for refuge in a word which I begin to love for itself.

Resting in the heart of words, seeing clearly into the cell of a word, feeling
that the word is the seed of a life, a growing dawn.
24One word properly known and properly understood is enough to re-

veal all the glories of heaven and earth.

1. Frank Darabont. 2. Sharon Salzberg. 3. Luis Rodriguez. 4. Samuel Beckett.

5. Karen L. Oberst. 6. Anne Sexton. 7. Åsne Seierstad. 8. Ernest Hemingway.
9. Steven Crisp. 10. Robert Burns. 11. Dennis Farina. 12. Lou Rhodes. 13.
MaryJane Incorvia Mattina. 14. Author Unknown. 15. Henriette Anne Klauser.
16. Steve Carlton. 17. Sandy Grason. 18. W. S. Merwin. 19. Sharon Salzberg.
20. Åsne Seierstad. 21. J. M. Coetzee. 22. Margaret Atwood. 23. Gaston Bach-
elard. 24. Panini.

42
 B E G I N B Y

D E S C E N D I N G

1 It is well to remember that

the entire population of the
universe, with one trifling excep-
tion, is composed of others. 2Please
don’t ever lose sight of your own
simple humanity.
very difficult to counterfeit. 11It
makes us real. 12It is nothing but
truth.
3 Many people believe that hu-
mility is the opposite of pride,
when, in fact, it is a point of equi-

2 A person should have two

pieces of paper, one in each
pocket, to be used as necessary.
On one of them is written, “The
world was created for me,” and on
the other, “I am but dust and
ashes.”
2Life is a long lesson in humil-
ity. 3Humility does not mean think-
ing less of yourself than of other
people, nor does it mean having
a low opinion of your own gifts.
It means freedom from thinking
librium. The opposite of pride is
actually a lack of self esteem. A
humble person is totally different
from a person who cannot recog-
nize and appreciate him or herself as
part of this world’s marvels.
2One may be humble out of
pride. 3If you are aware of your
humility, then you are arrogant. 4If
you wish others to know about
your good deeds, they are not truly
good deeds.
5The deed is greater than the

about yourself at all. 4To be hum-
ble is not to make comparisons.
5Humility is attentive patience,
6contentment, 7freedom from our
own driven ego. 8With it comes
wisdom, 9the only true wisdom by
which we prepare our minds for all
the possible changes of life. 10It is
one who did it. 6Be near when help
is needed, but far when praise and
thanks are being offered. 7If you
are humble nothing will touch you,
neither praise nor disgrace, because
you know who you are.
4 Do you wish to rise? Begin by

CHAPTER 1.1. Andrew J. Holmes. 1.2. Alan Alda. CHAPTER 2.1. Simhah Bu-
nim. 2.2. J. M. Barrie. 2.3. William Temple. 2.4. Dag Hammarskjöld. 2.5. Si-
mone Weil. 2.6. Henri-Frédéric Amiel. 2.7. Martha Kilpatrick. 2.8. The Book of
Proverbs. 2.9. George Arliss. 2.10. D. L. Moody. 2.11. Thomas Merton. 2.12.
Vincent de Paul. CHAPTER 3.1. Rabino Nilton Bonder. 3.2. Michel de Mon-
taigne. 3.3. Ibn Ata’Illah. 3.4. Hsuan Hua. 3.5. Ndebele saying. 3.6. Dham-
mavadaka. 3.7. Mother Teresa. CHAPTER 4.1. Augustine of Hippo.

43
descending. 2The rose remembers
the dust from which it came, and
3the rose returns.

CHAPTER 4.2. Edna St. Vincent Millay. 4.3. Hafiz.

44
 I
for something.
have a secret. I’ve been searching for something.
That is my secret. It is a pearl that I hold close to
my heart. Even when I was a child, I was searching

2I have searched the world for truth. ( 3The spoken and written world,

anyway.) 4I have culled the good, the pure, the beautiful, from all the flower
fields of the soul, 5dug up buried treasure from the most barren of books.
6Miraculous. It is as though the world were a great writing. 7We’re all kind

of writing it ourselves. We’re not writing the whole book, but we’re con-
tributing to it.
8I am writing what I remember. 9Out the words come, like blood gushing

from an artery.
10I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it. 11I want

to put down in writing what I can, 12to stand up, so to speak, and say, with
as little concealment as possible, what it is for me to be on earth at this mo-
ment. 13I don’t want to say anything about that which I don’t know. 14I just
know fragments, not the whole picture.
15By telling you these things, 16perhaps I am trying to lift up my life a

trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that. 17But as you
listen to me, 18you must always remember:
19This is not only my voice. 20These are the voices of the world.
21When all is said and done, it is as simple, and as mysterious, as that.

1. Alan Lightman. 2. John Greenleaf Whittier. 3. Ed Garcia. 4. John Greenleaf

Whittier. 5. Rui Pires Cabral. 6. Howard Nemerov. 7. John Toren. 8. Fidel
Castro. 9. Khaled Hosseini. 10. Gwendolyn Brooks. 11. Alan Lightman. 12.
Galway Kinnell. 13. Afzal Hayder. 14. Jonathan Freilich. 15. Richard Rodri-
guez. 16. E. B. White. 17. Holly Hanson. 18. Maura Harty. 19. Hyder Husyn.
20. Mumia Abu-Jamal. 21. Daniel Mendelsohn.

45
 R I G H T
I S P A R A D I S E
1 How far to heaven? Just open
your eyes and look.
2What you look forward to has
already come, but you do not rec-
ognize it. 3There is only looking,
and finally seeing, what was always
there.
4The path to heaven doesn’t lie
down in flat miles. It’s in the imag-
ination with which you perceive
this world, and the gestures with
which you honor it. 5Unless you
turn and become like a child, you
will never enter.
2 Heaven is neither a place or a
time. 2It is within you. 3Seek it
first and all things will be added.
4Every day, early in the morn-
ing, stand in front of a mirror. If
you see an undivine face looking
back at you, then rest assured that
the whole world is undivine. But if
you are getting joy from your face,
if it is pure and divine, then rest
assured that the world is also pure
and divine. According to the way
you see yourself, the rest of the
world will present itself to you.
5The mind is its own place and in
CHAPTER 1.1. Ravi Shankar. 1.2. Jesus. 1.3. Daniel Mendelsohn. 1.4. Mary
Oliver. 1.5. Jesus. CHAPTER 2.1. Florence Nightingale. 2.2. Jesus. 2.3. Jesus.
2.4. Sri Chinmoy. 2.5. John Milton. CHAPTER 3.1. Aldous Huxley. 3.2. Emily
Dickinson. CHAPTER 4.1. George Santayana. 4.2. Gautama Buddha.
46
H E R E
itself, can make a heaven of hell, a
hell of heaven.
3 It is because we don't know
who we are, because we are
unaware that heaven is within us,
that we behave in the generally
silly, the often insane, the some-
times criminal ways that are so
characteristically human. We are
saved, we are liberated and enlight-
ened, by perceiving the hitherto
unperceived good that is already
within us, by returning to our eter-
nal Ground and remaining where,
without knowing, we have always
been.
2So, instead of getting to heaven
at last—we’re going, all along.
4 Heaven is to be at peace with
things.
2Let your love flow outward
through the universe, to its height,
its depth, its broad extent, a limit-
less love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk, sit or
lie down, as long as you are awake,
strive for this with a one-pointed
mind; your life will bring heaven to
earth.
3This is the time. This is the

place. This is the vastness. Right

here is paradise. Always. Always.

CHAPTER 4.3. Byron Katie.

47
 T O D A Y I S

T H E S E E D T I M E

1 The World is three days: As

for yesterday, it has vanished,
along with all that was in it. As for
tomorrow, you may never see it. As
for today, it is yours, so work in it.
rolled up in this present moment
of illumination, and this present
moment is not something standing
still with all its contents, for it
ceaselessly moves on.
8Now is the most important

2 Never limit your view of life

by any past experience. 2Say
not, “Why were the former days
time because it is the only time that
we have any power.

better than these?” For it is not

from wisdom that you ask this. 3I
tell you the past is a bucket of
4 Tomorrow is, ah, whose?
2The future has a way of

arriving unannounced. 3It enters in-

ashes. 4There is no going back. to us, in order to transform itself
in us, long before it happens.

3 Today is the seed time. 2It is a

gift. 3A little life. 4A miracle of
its own. 5How we relate to it cre-
4Don’t allow the future to scare

you. 5Don’t be anxious about it.

6We were born to improvise. 7Real

ates the future. 6Past and future are generosity toward the future con-
in the mind only—we are now. sists in giving all to what is present.
7Now life quivers in its true 8May it be the ground into which

sense. The past and future are both you sink your roots.

CHAPTER 1. Hassan al-Basri. CHAPTER 2.1. Ernest Holmes. 2.2. The Book of
Proverbs. 2.3. Carl Sandburg. 2.4. John Ashbery. CHAPTER 3.1. W. E. B. Du-
Bois. 3.2. Babatunde Olatunji. 3.3. Arthur Schopenhauer. 3.4. Paulo Coelho.
3.5. Pema Chödrön. 3.6. Nisargadatta Maharaj. 3.7. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki.
3.8. Leo Tolstoy. CHAPTER 4.1. Dinah Mulock Craik. 4.2. George Will. 4.3.
Rainer Maria Rilke. 4.4. Tennessee Williams. 4.5. Jesus. 4.6. Thelma “Butter-
fly” McQueen. 4.7. Albert Camus. 4.8. Paul the Apostle.

48
mundane.
T he prison guards are capable of committing daily
atrocities and obscenities, smiling the smile of the
angels all the while. 2The immoral has become so

3I have met some younger prison guards who did show some kindness.

One time, I was so cold due to undernourishment and lack of clothes, a

young guard tried to throw me a blanket through an opening in the cell
door. He tried hard but could not push the blanket through. He finally gave
up for fear of being caught by others. He then returned a moment later to
give me a cigarette and a match. I could not recognize his face in the dark
but tried to remember him by the watch on his wrist. The small gesture of
kindness and humanity from this young guard was a fire that gave me
warmth and hope.
4In an environment that’s so dehumanizing and insulting, just to have

one person who cared was important. 5I would talk to him from my bed. I
told him who I was, where I was from. I did most of the talking.
6I remember once he said to me, 7“You cannot read my thoughts. 8You

do not know me.” 9I could barely hear his voice.

10I’d taken quite a liking to him, you see. He was a decent sort of boy, I

could tell. 11But then he disappeared.

12I have to be careful. 13I don’t want blood on my hands.

1. Jean Harris. 2. Clive Stafford Smith. 3. Tran Manh Quynh. 4. Benjamin

Thompson. 5. Khaled Hosseini. 6. Mark Doyle. 7. Åsne Seierstad. 8. Luke M.
Rickford. 9. Åsne Seierstad. 10. Khaled Hosseini. 11. John Skoyles. 12. Lee
Trevino. 13. David Coltart.

49
 T H I S M O M E N T

I S Y O U R L I F E

1 Each moment is a place

you’ve never been. 2Wherever
you are is called Here, and you
born child that has no name.
3If we are not fully ourselves,

truly in the present moment, we

must treat it as a powerful stranger, miss everything. When a child pre-
must ask permission to know it sents himself to you with his
and be known. smile, if you are not really there—
thinking about the future or the

2 Life can only take place in the

present moment. If we lose
the present moment, we lose life.
2Love the moment. Each mo-
ment is vital. It affects the whole.
3When you dance, dance; when you
sleep, sleep; yes, and when you
walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if
your thoughts have been dwelling
past, or preoccupied with other
problems—then the child is not
really there for you. The technique
of being alive is to go back to
yourself in order for the child to
appear like a marvelous reality. Then
you can see him smile and you can
embrace him in your arms.
4The little things? The little

elsewhere, bring them back to the
walk, to the orchard, to the sweet-
ness of this solitude. 4Know what
you are doing. 5I am speaking of
living, of moving from one mo-
ment into the next, and into the
one after.
6The morning wind spreads its
fresh smell. We must get up and
take that in, that wind that lets us
live. Breathe before it’s gone.
moments? They aren’t little. 5Peo-
ple usually consider walking on
water or in thin air a miracle. But I
think the real miracle is not to walk
either on water or in thin air, but to
walk on earth. Every day we are
engaged in a miracle which we
don't even recognize: a blue sky,
white clouds, green leaves, the
black, curious eyes of a child—our
own two eyes. All is a miracle.
6Where there is great love there are

3 This moment is your life. 2See

it for the first time as a new-
always miracles. 7You are not a
realist if you do not believe in them.

CHAPTER 1.1. Mark Strand. 1.2. David Wagoner. CHAPTER 2.1. Gautama
Buddha. 2.2. Corita Kent. 2.3. Michel de Montaigne. 2.4. Dipa Ma. 2.5.
Denise Levertov. 2.6. Jalaluddin Rumi. CHAPTER 3.1. Omar Khayyám. 3.2.
Rabindranath Tagore. 3.3. Thich Nhat Hanh. 3.4. Jon Kabat-Zinn. 3.5. Thich
Nhat Hanh. 3.6. Willa Cather. 3.7. Anwar Sadat.

50
4 To be bored is to turn down
cold whatever life happens to
be offering you at the moment. It
is to cast a jaundiced eye at life in
general, including most of all your
own life. You feel nothing is worth
getting excited about because you
6 Wake up. 2Do it again, and
again, and forever again. 3A-
waken all of yourself: 4your beliefs,
your morals, your actions, your
dealings, your decisions, and your
efforts.
5To be awake is to be alive. I

are yourself not worth getting ex-
cited about.
2Life is a mystery as deep as
ever death can be. 3Learn to live in
it. 4Listen to it. In the pain of it no
have never yet met a human being
who was quite awake. How could
I have looked them in the face? 6In
that person there is dawn.
7Pay attention to the frog. Pay

less than the excitement and glad-
ness. In the last analysis all mo-
ments are key moments—5every
moment of light and dark is a
miracle—6and life itself is grace.
attention to the west wind. Pay
attention to the boy on the raft, the
lady in the tower, the old man on
the train. In sum, pay attention to
the world and all that dwells
therein and thereby learn at last to

5 To see the preciousness of

each moment, we must bring
our full attention to life. (2The
pay attention to yourself and all
that dwells therein.

meaning of life is to see.) 3If we

could understand a single grain of
wheat we would die of wonder.
7 We wake, if ever at all, to
mystery. 2All is mystery. 3Mys-
tery has its own mysteries.
4The universe is full of magical 4The first mystery is simply

things patiently waiting. 5Earth’s that there is a mystery. A mystery

crammed with heaven, and every
common bush afire with “God”;
but only they who see, take off their
shoes—the rest sit round it and
pluck blackberries.
that can never be explained or un-
derstood. Only encountered from
time to time. 5The wind blows
where it wills, and you hear the
sound of it, but you do not know
where it comes from or where it is

CHAPTER 4.1. Frederick Buechner. 4.2. Mary Mapes Dodge. 4.3. Ravi Shan-
kar. 4.4. Frederick Buechner. 4.5. Walt Whitman. 4.6. Frederick Buechner.
CHAPTER 5.1. Jack Kornfield. 5.2. Hui-neng. 5.3. Martin Luther. 5.4. Eden
Phillpotts. 5.5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. CHAPTER 6.1. Gautama Buddha.
6.2. Chinese saying. 6.3. Lao-tzu. 6.4. Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi. 6.5. Henry
David Thoreau. 6.6. Henry David Thoreau. 6.7. Frederick Buechner. CHAP-
TER 7.1. Annie Dillard. 7.2. Benjamin Disraeli. 7.3. Jean Cocteau. 7.4. Law-
rence Kushner. 7.5. Jesus.

51
going. 6Such is the essential mystery.
7The final mystery is oneself.
8When one has weighed the sun in
the balance, and measured the
steps of the moon, and mapped
out the seven heavens star by star,
there still remains oneself. Who
can calculate the orbit of his or her
we can have is 2the mystery within
us reaching out to the mystery be-
yond. 3The one to whom this emo-
tion is a stranger, who can no
longer pause to wonder and stand
rapt in awe, is as good as dead: that
one’s eyes are closed.
4Stuff your eyes with wonder.

own soul? 5See the universe in a grain of

9Let mystery have its place in sand.
you. 10There is always more of it. 6Drink the universe in a glass

of rain.

8 The most beautiful experience 7Hold the universe in you.

CHAPTER 7.6. Lao-tzu. 7.7. Oscar Wilde. 7.8. Oscar Wilde. 7.9. Henri-
Frédéric Amiel. 7.10. Anaïs Nin. CHAPTER 8.1. Albert Einstein. 8.2. Jacob
Trapp. 8.3. Albert Einstein. 8.4. Ray Bradbury. 8.5. William Blake. 8.6. Ihab
Hassan. 8.7. Ramayana.

52
 I went on a hunger strike demanding a defense lawyer.
2“Go ahead and die!” said the guard on the first

day, on the second he squeaked like a torn boot, on the

third he fell silent. On the fourth day, he said: “Eat!” “What’s wrong?” he
said on the fifth. Then came the sixth day. In fact nothing happened. The
seventh day, 3about a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical unit.
There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I
would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while a doctor
was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.
4The feeding pipe was thick and would not go in. Blood came gushing

out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the
cartilages cracked. I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with
the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed
like I was drowning—my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor seemed ready
to burst into tears, but kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down.
Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully.
Then the doctor poured some slop through a funnel into the pipe. They held
me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was absorbed by my
stomach and could not be vomited back.
5They came back in the morning and did it all over again, for ten days.

Neither the doctor nor those guards could ever look me in the eye again.

1. Vladimir Bukovsky. 2. Visar Zhiti. 3. Vladimir Bukovsky. 4. Vladimir Buk-

ovsky. 5. Vladimir Bukovsky.

53
 F E A R I N A

H A N D F U L O F D U S T

1 I will show you fear in a

handful of dust.
2If we are honest with our-
selves, most of us will have to ad-
mit that we live out our lives in an
piness that cannot be exhausted,
but it will never be experienced
while our perceptions are twisted
by doubt and fear.
9Fear makes the wolf bigger

ocean of fear. 3Hurrying because we
are afraid. And I don’t think we
know what it is that we want to
escape. We don’t look at one an-
other. We jerk when brushed a-
gainst. We smile too much, but it’s
an ugly kind of smiling: it’s not joy,
than it is. 10So you must not be
frightened if a sadness rises up be-
fore you larger than any you have
ever seen; if a restiveness, like light
and cloud-shadows, passes over
your hands and over all you do.
11Nothing in life is to be feared. It

it’s pleading. I don’t know what it is only to be understood. 12Perhaps

is that’s happening to the world.
4The world is indeed a danger-
ous place, and obviously there are
times when the worst we fear does
happen. Yet what did being sick
with dread ever do to protect us?
Fear neither causes the thing feared
to happen nor prevents it. It is
mere static. It is an absence of mu-
sic. It is not power—5it empties
today of its strength.
6Who of us by worrying can
add a single hour to our life? 7Take
heart again; put your dismal fears
away. 8There is calmness at the cen-
ter of us, a very deep well of hap-
everything terrible is in its deep-
est being something helpless that
wants help from us.
2 Fear grows in darkness; if you
think there’s a bogeyman a-
round, turn on the light, 2or light a
candle. 3Better than cursing the dark-
ness. 4Give light, and the darkness
will disappear of itself. 5We may
understand this as a kind of fight
between light and darkness, but in
reality, it is an embrace.
3 Our deepest fear is not death.
2Our deepest fear is not the

CHAPTER 1.1. T. S. Eliot. 1.2. Jon Kabat-Zinn. 1.3. Ayn Rand. 1.4. Hugh
Prather. 1.5. Corrie ten Boom. 1.6. Jesus. 1.7. Virgil. 1.8. Hugh Prather. 1.9.
German saying. 1.10. Rainier Maria Rilke. 1.11. Marie Curie. 1.12. Rainer Maria
Rilke. CHAPTER 2.1. Dorothy Thompson. 2.2. Eleanor Roosevelt. 2.3. Chi-
nese saying. 2.4. Desiderius Erasmus. 2.5. Thich Nhat Hanh. CHAPTER 3.1.
Author Unknown. 3.2. Marianne Williamson.

54
unknown (3the whole of life is a
covenant with the unknown). 4Our
deepest fear is not that we are in-
adequate.
5Our deepest fear is that we
are powerful beyond measure. It is
our light, not our darkness that
4 Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide o-
pen? Move outside the tangle of
fear-thinking. 2Let not your heart
be troubled. 3Be not afraid, neither
be dismayed.
4Perfect love casts out fear.

most frightens us. 5Love is what we are born with.

6When we dare to be powerful
—to use our strength in the service
of our vision—then it becomes less
and less important whether we are
afraid. 7Knowing what must be done
does away with fear. 8As we are
Fear is what we have learned here.
The spiritual journey is the un-
learning of fear and the acceptance
of love back into our hearts. 6It
leads us deeper into the world.
7We are the light of the world.

liberated from it, our presence auto-

matically liberates others.

CHAPTER 3.3. Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. 3.4. Marianne Williamson. 3.5. Mari-
anne Williamson. 3.6. Audre Lorde. 3.7. Rosa Parks. 3.8. Nelson Mandela.
CHAPTER 4.1. Jalaluddin Rumi. 4.2. Jesus. 4.3. The Book of Joshua. 4.4. The First
Epistle of John. 4.5. Marianne Williamson. 4.6. Henri Nouwen. 4.7. Jesus.

55
 I f a wall, long and thick, a high wall, should rise in front
of you . . . what would you do? I would close my eyes, I
would crouch and rest my cheek against it, I would find
peace in its cool serenity.
2My eyes follow a crack in the ceiling.
3At times, I have felt the world opening up around me, shifting, cracks

forming in the wall of experience, and I have been poised to see through
those cracks. There is something unseen behind common experience, some
totality, which can be glimpsed only through the cracks.
4It hides within all things, till one day it cracks them open.

1. Lindita Arapi. 2. Alan Lightman. 3. Alan Lightman. 4. Jalaluddin Rumi.

56
 C O U R A G E

I S A M U S C L E

1 There comes a time when the

risk to remain tight in the bud
is more painful than the risk it
are.
3Stand firm in that which you

takes to blossom. 2All serious dar-

ing starts from within. 4 Life shrinks or expands in pro-
portion to our courage. 2What
a new face it puts on everything.

2 Courage is resistance to fear,

mastery of fear, not absence
of fear. 2It is the judgment that
3We must assume our exis-

tence as broadly as we in any way

something else is more important
than fear. 3It is fear holding out for
just a few minutes longer.
4Courage doesn’t always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet
voice at the end of the day saying,
“I will try again tomorrow.”
can; everything, even the unheard-
of, must be possible in it. That is at
bottom the only courage that is
demanded of us: to have courage
for the most strange, the most sin-
gular, the most inexplicable that we
may encounter.

3 We aren’t necessarily born with

courage, but we are born with
potential. Without courage we can-
not practice any other virtue with
consistency. We can’t be kind,
true, merciful, generous, or honest.
2With courage we will dare to take
risks, have the strength to be com-
passionate, and the wisdom to be
humble. It is the foundation of in-
tegrity.
5 Courage is like a muscle. We
strengthen it with use. 2We
can’t test it cautiously. (3Every dog
is brave on its own doorstep.) 4We
must do the things we think we
cannot do, 5teach ourselves not to
be afraid, become so wrapped up
in 6something that we forget to
be afraid. 7It is our duty as men
and women to proceed as though
the limits of our abilities do not
exist.

CHAPTER 1.1. Anaïs Nin. 1.2. Eudora Welty. CHAPTER 2.1. Mark Twain.
2.2. Ambrose Redmoon. 2.3. Marcia Byalick. 2.4. Mary Anne Radmacher.
CHAPTER 3.1. Maya Angelou. 3.2. Keshavan Nair. 3.3. Kabir. CHAPTER 4.1.
Anaïs Nin. 4.2. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 4.3. Rainier Maria Rilke. CHAPTER
5.1. Ruth Gordon. 5.2. Annie Dillard. 5.3. Celtic saying. 5.4. Eleanor Roose-
velt. 5.5. Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson. 5.6. William Faulkner. 5.7. Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin.

57
6 Let your courage mount with
difficulties. 2Let go of certain-
ties. Accept that you might fail. If
3
5There is only the trying. The
rest is not our business.

you don’t accept failure as a possi-

bility, you don’t set high goals, you
don’t branch out, you don’t take the
7 Stop to look fear in the face.
2Look life in the face. 3Find

your place on the planet. Dig in,

risk. 4A lot of people refuse to do and take responsibility from there.
things because they don’t want to 4Whatever you can do, or dream

go naked, don’t want to go without you can do, begin it. Boldness has
guarantee. But that’s what’s got to genius, power and magic in it. Be-
happen. You go naked until you die. gin it now.

CHAPTER 6.1. Nilakanta Sri Ram. 6.2. Erich Fromm. 6.3. Rosalynn Carter.
6.4. Nikki Giovanni. 6.5. T. S. Eliot. CHAPTER 7.1. Eleanor Roosevelt. 7.2.
Edith Wharton. 7.3. Gary Snyder. 7.4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

58
 I was five and lying in high grass. A bee hummed close
to my eye and frightened me. Then the bee started to
suck honey and at that very moment I became sun,
bee, flower and grass. “Me” had evaporated with my fear.
2What does my life matter? I just want it to be faithful, to the end, to

the child I used to be. 3I still seek and shall always seek “how to live,” now
not in childhood but near the other end of the course of life.
4I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where
the fear has gone there will be nothing.

1. Frederick Franck. 2. Georges Bernanos. 3. Martin Marty. 4. Frank Herbert.

59
 T H E T H O R N B U S H

M U S T C A T C H F I R E

1 For a long time it had seemed

to me that life was about to
begin—real life. But there was al-
ways some obstacle in the way,
something to be got through first,
some unfinished business; time to
be served, a debt to be paid. Then
life would begin. At last it dawned
any pain, any melancholy, since we
really do not know what these
states are working upon us? Why
do we want to persecute ourselves
with the question whence all this
may be coming and whither it is
bound?
5Life is patchwork—here and

on me that these obstacles were my there, scraps of pleasure and de-

life. spair join together, hit or miss.
2The thornbush is the old ob- 6When uncomfortable things hap-

stacle in the road. It must catch fire pen to us, we rarely want to have
if you want to go further. anything to do with them. We
might respond with the belief

2 We are most uniquely human

when we turn obstacles into
opportunities. 2Difficulties are meant
to rouse, not discourage. 3Great nec-
essities call out great virtues.
“This shouldn’t be this way” or
“Life shouldn’t be so messy.” Who
says? Who says that life shouldn’t
be a mess? Our difficulties are not
obstacles to the path; they are the
path itself.

3 It's a tough life, often un-

pleasant, sometimes downright
awful. 2We all have been hurt and
will be hurt again. But it is the
choices we make on how to deal
with that hurt that determine the
quality of our life.
3Every experience is a form of
exploration. 4Why do we want to
shut out of our life any agitation,
4 Yes, this world is a curious
place. Lots of times the ground
seems to lay smooth and serene
under your rocking chair, when all
the time an earthquake may be on
the very point of busting it open
and swallowing you up—chair and
all.
2Life will break you. Nobody

CHAPTER 1.1. Alfred D’Souza. 1.2. Franz Kafka. CHAPTER 2.1. Eric Hoffer.
2.2. William Ellery Channing. 2.3. Abigail Adams. CHAPTER 3.1. Ron Padgett.
3.2. Jeroen Sluiter. 3.3. Ansel Adams. 3.4. Rainer Maria Rilke. 3.5. Anne Bro-
naugh. 3.6. Ezra Bayda. CHAPTER 4.1. Marietta Holley. 4.2. Louise Erdrich.

60
can protect you from that. You
have to love. You have to feel. It is
the reason you are here on earth.
You are here to risk your heart.
You are here to be swallowed up.
And when it happens that you are
broke, or betrayed, or left, or hurt,
or death brushes near, let yourself
sit by an apple tree and listen to the
apples falling all around you in
heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell
yourself that you tasted as many as
you could.
5 Things falling apart is a kind
of testing and also a kind of
healing. We think that the point is
to pass the test or to overcome
the problem, but the truth is that
things don’t really get solved. They
come together and they fall apart.
Then they come together again and
fall apart again. It’s just like that.
The healing comes from letting
there be room for all of this to
happen: room for grief, for relief,
for misery, for joy.
6 Do not weep; do not wax
indignant. Understand. 2Life
is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s
what it is. 3Anguish emerges from
craving for life to be other than it is.
4The greatest help in meeting
CHAPTER 5. Pema Chödrön. CHAPTER 6.1. Baruch Spinoza. 6.2. Virginia
Satir. 6.3. Stephen Batchelor. 6.4. William Faulkner. 6.5. Margaret Atwood.
6.6. Harriet Beecher Stowe. 6.7. Henry Miller. 6.8. Rosa Alice Branco. 6.9.
Henry Miller. 6.10. Rainier Maria Rilke. 6.11. Henry Miller. 6.12. Eckhart
Tolle.
61
any problem is to know where you
yourself stand. 5Refuse to be a vic-
tim. 6Never give up. 7Life moves
on, whether we act as cowards or
heroes. Life has no other disci-
pline to impose than to accept life
unquestioningly. 8Accept the day.
What will come. 9Everything we
shut our eyes to, everything we run
away from, everything we deny,
denigrate or despise, serves to de-
feat us in the end.
10What is required of us is that
we love the difficult and learn to
deal with it. In the difficult are
the friendly forces, the hands that
work on us. Right in the difficult
we must have our joys, our happi-
ness, our dreams; there against
the depth of this background, they
stand out, there for the first time
we see how beautiful they are.
11What seems nasty, painful, evil,
can become a source of beauty, joy
and strength, if faced with an open
mind.
12To offer no resistance to life
is to be in a state of grace, ease,
and lightness. This state is then no
longer dependent upon things be-
ing in a certain way, good or bad.
It seems almost paradoxical, yet
when your inner dependency on
form is gone, the general condi-
tions of your life, the outer forms, away, cycles will come and go, but
tend to improve greatly. All those with dependency gone there is no
things, of course, will still pass fear of loss anymore.

62
 I N T H E

D A R K E S T T I M E

1 When suffering knocks at

your door and you say there is
no seat for him, he tells you not to
must go. Before you know kind-
ness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the
worry because he has brought his other deepest thing.
own stool.

2 At times a drop of water falls

to the ground as if it were a
tear. At times there isn’t ground
enough to soak it up.
2Heaven is high, earth wide.
Bitter between them flies my sor-
row. 3Sorrow is spread all over the
whole world. 4There is no way out,
there is no way back. 5The only
way round is through.
4 In a real dark night of the
soul, it is always three o’clock
in the morning, day after day. 2Per-
haps the dark night comes upon
you from inside or outside to wake
you up, to stir you and steer you
toward a new life. Your dark night
may be a period of apparent life-
lessness that precedes a new birth
of meaning. Maybe your dark night
is a gestation, a coming into being
of a level of existence you have

3 When you are forced to bear

the unbearable something dies
in you. What dies in you is whom
you thought you were that couldn’t
bear the unbearable. 2Bearing the
unbearable is the root of the deep-
never dreamed of. Maybe your dark
night is one big ironical challenge,
just the opposite of what it ap-
pears to be—not a dying, but a
birthing.
3A dark night of the soul can

est compassion. heal, where healing means being

3Loss is the great lesson. 4Be-
fore you know what kindness really
is you must lose things, feel the
future dissolve in a moment like
salt in a weakened broth. What
you held in your hand, what you
counted and carefully saved, all this
more alive and more present to
the world around you. It heals by
opening you up, sometimes to the
point where you might feel dis-
membered. It opens the doorway
between you and the world.

CHAPTER 1. Chinua Achebe. CHAPTER 2.1. Rosa Alice Branco. 2.2. Li Po.
2.3. Adi Granth. 2.4. Annie Johnson Flint. 2.5. Robert Frost. CHAPTER 3.1.
Ram Dass. 3.2. Ram Dass. 3.3. Mary Oliver. 3.4. Naomi Shihab Nye. CHAP-
TER 4.1. F. Scott Fitzgerald. 4.2. Thomas Moore. 4.3. Thomas Moore.

63
5 When we are no longer able
to change a situation, we are
challenged to change ourselves.
for vision. 5In the dark time, the
eye begins to see. 6In it is hidden
mercy.
2Confront the dark parts of your- 7Suffering is both what we

self, and work to banish them with
illumination and forgiveness. Your
willingness to wrestle with your
demons will cause your angels to
sing.
3We are not born all at once,
but by bits. The birth and growth
of the spirit, in those who are at-
tentive to their own inner life, are
slow and exceedingly painful. Our
mothers are racked with the pains
share in common with one another
and what is ours uniquely. 8I do
not believe that sheer suffering
teaches. If suffering alone taught,
all the world would be wise, since
everyone suffers. To suffering must
be added mourning, understand-
ing, patience, love, openness and
the willingness to remain vulner-
able.
9You and I are a mist that ap-

of our physical birth; we ourselves
suffer the longer pains of our spiri-
tual growth. 4Be mindful of the
pain. 5Use the pain as fuel, as a
reminder of your strength. 6Suf-
fering often feels like failure, but it
is actually the door into growth.
And growth does not cease to be
painful at any age.
pears for a little while and then
vanishes. 10To be human is to be
vulnerable—this we must accept.
Our invincibility lies in our ability to
not let the emotional and physical
setbacks in life conquer us. We may
be vulnerable to the experiences,
but invincible in our resolve. We’re
unconquerable.
11Those who are willing to be

6 During the time of the dark-

est night, act as if the morn-
vulnerable move among mysteries.

ing has already come. 2At the dark-

est moment comes the light, 3the
real message of transformation, the
7 When the night is over, we
find another dawn.
2No one is as capable of grat-

revelation. itude as those who have emerged

4All suffering prepares the soul from the kingdom of night. 3They

CHAPTER 5.1. Victor Frankl. 5.2. August Wilson. 5.3. Mary Antin. 5.4. Say-
adaw U Pandita. 5.5. August Wilson. 5.6. May Sarton. CHAPTER 6.1. The Tal-
mud. 6.2. Joseph Campbell. 6.3. Joseph Campbell. 6.4. Martin Buber. 6.5.
Theodore Roethke. 6.6. Jalaluddin Rumi. 6.7. Frederick Franck. 6.8. Anne
Morrow Lindbergh. 6.9. The Epistle of James. 6.10. Obi. 6.11. Theodore
Roethke. CHAPTER 7.1. Georges Bernanos. 7.2. Elie Wiesel. 7.3. Albert
Schweitzer.

64
are the Fellowship of those who
bear the Mark of Pain. Those who
have learnt by experience what
pain and anguish mean. One and
all they know the horrors of suffer-
ing to which human beings can be
exposed, and one and all they
know the longing to be free from
pain. Those who have been delivered
from pain must not think they are
CHAPTER 7.4. Nezami-ye Ganjavi.
65
now free again, and at liberty to
take life up just as it was before,
entirely forgetful of the past. They
are now people “whose eyes are
open” with regard to pain and an-
guish, and they must help bring to
others the deliverance which they
have themselves enjoyed.
4Crystal rain falls from black
clouds.
 I t broke me, my children dying. I miss them. Not a day
passes that I . . . it’s very hard. So very hard.
2It happens in an instant.
3All motion stopped when they died. The earth lurched to a halt and

hung still on its axis, the atoms in the air coming to rest within their mole-
cules. 4They were so young. Still at school. 5They were beautiful children.
6I don’t know if you have children of your own. I still dream of them. I

still dream of my dead children. 7I close my eyes, and I see them. I open my
eyes, and I see them.
8How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?
9Don’t try to tell me that time heals all wounds. I was counting on my

children for the rest of my life.

10If I had loved better. . . .
11I can’t think of it. When I am upset I can’t remember things.

1. Khaled Hosseini. 2. Marge Piercy. 3. Debra Spencer. 4. Anonymous Iraqi

woman. 5. Bessie Koutroulis. 6. Khaled Hosseini. 7. Alan Lightman. 8. Stan-
ley Kunitz. 9. Adília Lopes. 10. Claire Genoux. 11. Meg Grossbard.

66
 A L L

G O

1 Bring me a mustard seed from

a house in which there has
been no death.
endless collection of things to prop
it up: our name, our “biography”,
our partners, family, home, job,
2All go. friends. It is on their fragile and
transient support that we rely for

2 Death is a Dialogue between

the Spirit and the Dust. 2Birth
is the beginning of it. 3Every breath
our security. So when they are all
taken away, will we have any idea
of who we really are?
we take is a step towards it. 4So we 4Your image on the surface of

die before our own eyes.
5Our lives are brief beyond our
comprehension or our desire. We
drop like cottonwood leaves from
trees after a single frost. The inter-
val between birth and death is
scarcely more than a breathing
space. 6An individual life is, in the
end, nothing more than a stirring
the water: it is you, but you are not
it.
4 Why this fuss about death.
Use your imagination, try to
visualize a world without death.
Death is the essential condition of
life, not an evil.
2If you ask, “Why is death

of air, a shifting of light. No one happening to me (or to anyone)?”

of us, finally, can be more than the answer is: because the universe
that. is happening to you; you are an
event of the universe; you are a

3 Many of us fear death. 2We

have perhaps a natural fear of
ends. 3And perhaps we are afraid of
death because we do not know who
we are. We believe in a personal,
unique, and separate identity; but if
we dare to examine it, we find that
this identity depends entirely on an
child of the stars, as well as of your
parents, and you could not be a
child in any other way. Even
while you live, and certainly when
you die, the atoms and molecules
which are at present locked into
your shape and appearance are
being unlocked and scattered into

CHAPTER 1.1. Gautama Buddha. 1.2. Donald Hall. CHAPTER 2.1. Emily Dick-
inson. 2.2. Thomas Fuller. 2.3. Nahjul Balagha. 2.4. Sarah Orne Jewett. 2.5.
Harriet Doerr. 2.6. Harriet Doerr. CHAPTER 3.1. Betsy Taylor. 3.2. Eric Hof-
fer. 3.3. Sogyal Rinpoche. 3.4. Anni Sumari. CHAPTER 4.1. Charlotte Perkins
Gilman. 4.2. John Bowker.

67
other shapes and forms of con- life, beautify all things in your life.
struction. 3Birth is not a beginning; 5People living deeply have no

death is not an end. 4The secret
name of every death is life again.
5Let children walk with Na-
ture, let them see the beautiful
blendings and communions of death
and life, their joyous inseparable
unity, as taught in woods and
fear of death. 6Do not fear death
so much but rather the inadequate
life. 7Carpe diem! Rejoice while you
are alive; enjoy the day; live life to
the fullest; make the most of what
you have. It is later than you think.
8Tell me, what is it you plan to

meadows, plains and mountains and
streams of our blessed star, and
they will learn that death is stingless
indeed, and as beautiful as life.
6Then a little child shall lead us.
do with your one wild and precious
life? 9Open your eyes and look with-
in. Are you satisfied with the life
you’re living?
10Death will come. Be patient.

5 We say that the hour of death

cannot be forecast, but when
we say this we imagine that hour as
placed in an obscure and distant
future. It never occurs to us that it
has any connection with the day
6 To die will be an awfully big
adventure. 2The Way of it will
be found in your own mind and no
other; inquire of it in your own
heart. 3What you live by you die by.
4The end, too, is part of the

already begun or that death could pattern, the last labor of the heart:
arrive this same afternoon, this to learn to lie still, one with the
afternoon which is so certain and earth again, and let the world go.
which has every hour filled in ad- 5Yes, what is over now is over, yes,

vance. we offer thanks.

2You don’t get to choose how 6Listen. It is the sound of our-

you’re going to die. Or when. You selves, this passage: a breath. We

can only decide how you’re going are almost not here.
to live. Now. 3Until death, it is all 7Maybe death isn’t darkness,

life. 4Therefore live your life that the after all, but so much light wrap-
fear of death can never enter your ping itself around us—as soft as
heart. Love your life, perfect your feathers.

CHAPTER 4.3. Chuang-tzu. 4.4. Mary Oliver. 4.5. John Muir. 4.6. The Book of
Isaiah. CHAPTER 5.1. Marcel Proust. 5.2. Joan Baez. 5.3. Doris Grumbaugh.
5.4. Tecumseh. 5.5. Anaïs Nin. 5.6. Bertolt Brecht. 5.7. Horace. 5.8. Mary
Oliver. 5.9. Bob Marley. 5.10. Josephine Dodge Bacon. CHAPTER 6.1. J. M.
Barrie. 6.2. Naokata Nakanishi. 6.3. Robert Frost. 6.4. Wendell Berry. 6.5.
C. K. Williams. 6.6. Philip Dacey. 6.7. Mary Oliver.

68
7 When it’s over, I don’t want
to wonder if I have made of
my life something particular, and
argument. I don’t want to end up
simply having visited the world.
2I would have written of me

real. I don’t want to find myself on my stone: 3May I, may you, may
sighing and frightened, or full of we not die unlived lives.

CHAPTER 7.1. Mary Oliver. 7.2. Robert Frost. 7.3. Dawna Markova.

69
 H A V E

Y O U R B L O O M I N G

1 Unbeing dead isn’t being

alive. 2Listen, are you breath-
ing just a little, and calling it a life?
3To live is the rarest thing in
the world. Most people exist, that
is all. 4How many people eat, drink,
and those who find it are few. 2If
your daily life seems poor, do not
blame it; blame yourself that you
are not poet enough to call forth
its riches.
3Count each day as a separate

and get married; buy, sell and life. 4There, where you live, live:
build; make contracts and attend 5Be serious, be passionate, wake

to their fortune; have friends and up. 6Live! And have your blooming
enemies, pleasures and pains, are in the noise of the whirlwind.
born, grow up, live and die—but
asleep!
5Life is not lost by dying; life is

lost minute by minute, day by

dragging day, in all the thousand
small uncaring ways. 6It is not death
4 We are on a market trip on
earth: whether we fill our bas-
kets or not, once the time is up, we
go home.
2Look, I want to love this

that we should fear, but never be- world as though it’s the last chance
ginning to live. I’m ever going to get to be alive
7The beginning is always today. and know it. 3To be completely
alive every moment in spite of the

2 Where is my life? What have I

done with my life?
2There are no other questions
than these, half squashed in mud,
emerging out of the moment we all
live, learning to like it.
inevitable. 4To live in radical open-
ness to pure experiencing. 5To
love. To be loved. To never forget
my own insignificance. To never
get used to the unspeakable vio-
lence and the vulgar disparity of
life around me. To seek joy in the

3 The gate is narrow and the

way is hard that leads to life,
saddest places. To pursue beauty to
its lair. To never simplify what is

CHAPTER 1.1. e. e. cummings. 1.2. Mary Oliver. 1.3. Oscar Wilde. 1.4. Joseph
Joubert. 1.5. Stephen Vincent Benét. 1.6. Marcus Aurelius. 1.7. Mary Woll-
stonecraft. CHAPTER 2.1. Denise Levertov. 2.2. John Ashbery. CHAPTER 3.1.
Jesus. 3.2. Rainer Maria Rilke. 3.3. Seneca. 3.4. Denise Levertov. 3.5. Susan
Sontag. 3.6. Gwendolyn Brooks. CHAPTER 4.1. Igbo song. 4.2. Mary Oliver.
4.3. Charles Bukowski. 4.4. Frederick Franck. 4.5. Suzanna Arundhati Roy.

70
complicated or complicate what is
simple. To respect strength, never
power. Above all, to watch. To try
and understand. To never look
away. And never, never, to forget.
6I would rather die a meaning-
ful death than to live a meaningless
life. 7I would rather be ashes than
dust! I would rather that my spark
should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent
glow, than a sleepy and permanent
planet. The function of a human be-
ing is to live, not to exist. I shall not
waste my days trying to prolong
them. I shall use my time.
CHAPTER 4.6. Corazon Aquino. 4.7. Jack London. 4.8. Dipa Ma. CHAPTER
5.1. Mary Oliver. 5.2. Jesus. CHAPTER 6. Jonathan Swift.
71
8There is nothing ultimately to
cling to in this world, but we can
make good use of everything in it.
Life is not to be rejected. It is here.
And as long as it is here and we are
here, we can make the best use of it.
5 For years and years I strug-
gled just to love my life. And
then the butterfly rose, weightless,
in the wind. “Don’t love your life
too much,” it said, and vanished
into the world.
2If you try to hang on to your
life, you will lose it.
6 May you live all the days of
your life.
 I know it’s not the kind of thing you ought to say, 2but it
was my fault. 3I wasn’t there. 4They should be alive to-
day.
5You want to forget, but you shouldn’t forget, you cannot forget.
6There can be no forgetting now. 7The dead are not dead.
8Unfortunately I have no photograph. 9Not that I need one. 10But a

photograph would be nice. 11A photograph of all of us. 12Like an emissary

from a lost moment in history. 13At night, I would take out the photograph
and talk to you. 14I would say good night.

15Isee you, I hear you, I feel you. I have woven you this wide shroud
out of humble words. 16Everywhere, forever and always, I will never forget
one single thing.

17Why do I tell you these things? You are not even here.

1. David Shumate. 2. Charlotte Carroll. 3. Boris Goldsmith. 4. Shlomo Adler.

5. Anna Heller Stern. 6. Patricia Reis. 7. Birago Diop. 8. Solveig Zempel. 9.
Frieden. 10. Gaius Arbo. 11. Arjun Dangle. 12. Daniel Mendelsohn. 13. Daniel
Mendelsohn. 14. Adam Kulberg. 15. Anna Akhmatova. 16. Anna Akhmatova.
17. John Ashbery.

72
 G R A T I T U D E ,
N O M A T T E R W H A T H A P P E N S

1 This being human is a guest

house. Every morning a new
arrival. A joy, a depression, a mean-
ness, some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in. Be grateful for
whoever comes, because each has
been sent as a guide from beyond.
2Everything comes to us that
3 When a person doesn’t have
gratitude, something is miss-
ing in his or her humanity. (2A
donkey knows no gratitude.) 3Life
without thankfulness is devoid of
love and passion. Hope without
thankfulness is lacking in fine
perception. Every virtue divorced
from thankfulness is maimed and
limps along the spiritual road.
4Gratitude unlocks the fullness

belongs to us if we create the ca- of life. It turns what we have into

pacity to receive it. enough, and more. It turns denial
into acceptance, chaos to order,

2 Life is given to us; every mo-

ment is given. The only ap-
propriate response therefore is grate-
confusion to clarity. It can turn a
meal into a feast, a house into a
home, a stranger into a friend.
fulness. When we wake up to the 5It is the rosemary of the heart.

fact that everything is a gift, it is

only natural to be thankful and to
look on everything that happens as
a chance to respond to the Given
Life.
2It is through gratitude that we
acknowledge the living powers on
4 We often take for granted the
very things that most deserve
our gratitude. 2To educate ourselves
for the feeling of gratitude means
to take nothing for granted.
3Be grateful to people who make

which our own lives depend. 3We
should be thankful. No matter what
happens. No matter what hap-
pens.
you happy; they are the charming
gardeners who make your soul blos-
som. 4Be grateful to people who
help you become through the good
and bad experiences that you have

CHAPTER 1.1. Jalaluddin Rumi. 1.2. Rabindranath Tagore. CHAPTER 2.1. Da-
vid Steindl-Rast. 2.2. Rupert Sheldrake. 2.3. Islamic saying. CHAPTER 3.1. Elie
Wiesel. 3.2. Swahili saying. 3.3. John Henry Jowett. 3.4. Melody Beattie. 3.5.
Minna Antrim. CHAPTER 4.1. Cynthia Ozick. 4.2. Albert Schweitzer. 4.3.
Marcel Proust. 4.4. Anna Marie Mae R. Guerra.

73
with them. Give thanks for your food and for
5Be grateful for the home you the joy of living. 9Give thanks for
have. 6Be grateful for luck. a little and you will find a lot.
7Thanks cost nothing. 8When

you arise in the morning, give

thanks for the morning light. Give
thanks for your life and strength.
5 There are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the earth.

CHAPTER 4.5. Sarah Ban Breathnach. 4.6. Eubie Blake. 4.7. Creole saying.
4.8. Tecumseh. 4.9. Hausa saying. CHAPTER 5. Jalaluddin Rumi.

74
 A F U L L H E A R T H A S

R O O M F O R E V E R Y T H I N G

1 In yourself lies the whole

world, and if you know how
to look and learn, then the door is
there and the key is in your hand.
Nobody on earth can give you ei-
ther that key or the door to open
except yourself.
2All the knowledge you possess
everyone else can acquire, but your
heart is all your own. 3Know your-
self. 4Be everything that's you, deep
at the center of your being.
5Re-examine all you have been
told in school or worship or in any
2 Your heart is a polished mir-
ror. You must wipe it clean of
the veil of dust that has gathered
upon it, because it is destined to
reflect the light. 2When the inward
is good the outward is also inevita-
bly so, for the outward always fol-
lows the inward.
3 The heart has its reasons which
reason does not understand.
2It is only with the heart that you
can see rightly.
3Let your heart guide you. It

book, and dismiss whatever insults whispers, so listen closely. (4True

your own soul; and your very flesh
shall be a great poem, and have the
richest fluency, not only in its words,
but in the silent lines of its lips and
face, and between the lashes of
your eyes, and in every motion and
joint of your body.
6Whoever has not known one-
self knows nothing (7you dwell in
listening is worship.) 5Every time
you don’t follow your inner guid-
ance, you feel a loss of energy,
loss of power, a sense of spiritual
deadness. 6Carefully observe which
way your heart draws you, and
then choose that way with all your
strength.
7Accommodation of the heart

poverty, and it is you who are that is not always easy. Knowing that it
poverty), 8but whoever has known is a possibility is a great inspiration.
oneself has simultaneously come to The ultimate freedom. 8A sunray of
know the depth of all things. bliss.

CHAPTER 1.1. Jiddu Krishnamurti. 1.2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 1.3.
Thales of Miletus. 1.4. Confucius. 1.5. Walt Whitman. 1.6. Jesus. 1.7. Jesus.
1.8. Jesus. CHAPTER 2.1. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. 2.2. Abdullah ibn Alawi al-
Haddad. CHAPTER 3.1. Blaise Pascal. 3.2. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. 3.3. Stu
Krieger. 3.4. Martin Heidegger. 3.5. Shakti Gawain. 3.6. Hasidic saying. 3.7.
Sylvia Boorstein. 3.8. Franz Kafka.

75
4 Duty is an icy shadow. It will
freeze you. It cannot fill the
heart’s sanctuary.
it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have
any resolution, that this heart is
huge, vast and limitless. You begin
to discover how much warmth and

5 A full heart has room for ev-

erything and an empty heart
has room for nothing.
2When you begin to touch
your heart or let your heart be
touched, you begin to discover that
gentleness is there, as well as how
much space.
3Open up the chest so that it
may be spacious. 4Open out like
a rose that can no longer keep
closed.

CHAPTER 4. Augusta Evans. CHAPTER 5.1. Antonio Porchia. 5.2. Pema

Chödrön. 5.3. Polynesian saying. 5.4. Dante Alighieri.

76
 I believe in the supreme value of knowing we are going
to die because only this knowledge, thrown back in my
face over and over, has been capable of changing me in
ways that I am thankful for. Only suffering, with its certain intimation of
death, can reform my sense of who I am and cause me to re-imagine that
most important question: What is my stake in the lives of others?

Frederick Franck.

77
 A B A N Q U E T O F
C O N S E Q U E N C E S

1 Whatever a man sows, that he

will also reap; 2as a woman has
planted, so does she harvest.
3Whatever is matters. 4What-
ever happens matters. 5All that we
send into the lives of others comes
back into our own. 6Sooner or lat-
er, we sit down to a banquet of
consequences.
7Do not do to others what you
would not want done to yourself.
8The legacy of all life depends on
it.
3 What you do comes from
what you think. 2You are al-
ways demonstrating according to
the kind of thoughts you habitu-
ally entertain. 3If you realized how

2 Balance is the natural state of

life. 2The world exists in a
precarious balance and only right
or correct actions keep it from
tumbling. Wrong actions can dis-
turb the balance.
3We are all affecting the world
every moment, whether we mean
to or not. Our actions and states of
mind matter, because we are so
deeply interconnected with one an-
other. 4You are part of me. I am
part of you. 5With our hearts we
make the world.
6Whatever you wish that others
would do to you, do so to them.
powerful your thoughts are, you
would never think a negative
thought.
4 Your worst enemy cannot
harm you as much as your
own unguarded thoughts. 2Speak
or act with an impure mind and
trouble will follow you as the
wheel follows the ox that draws
the cart. Speak or act with a pure
mind and happiness will follow you
as your shadow, unshakable.
3Since you alone are responsi-
ble for your thoughts, only you can
change them.

CHAPTER 1.1. Paul the Apostle. 1.2. Adi Granth. 1.3. C. S. Lewis. 1.4. Qasim
Mehmud. 1.5. Edwin Markham. 1.6. Robert Louis Stevenson. CHAPTER 2.1.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 2.2. Wilma Mankiller. 2.3. Ram Dass. 2.4. Ravi
Shankar. 2.5. Gautama Buddha. 2.6. Jesus. 2.7. Confucius. 2.8. Julia Butterfly
Hill. CHAPTER 3.1. Helen Shucman, William Thetford. 3.2. Paramahansa Yo-
gananda. 3.3. Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman). CHAPTER 4.1. Gautama
Buddha. 4.2. Gautama Buddha. 4.3. Paramahansa Yogananda.

78
 Y O U A R E
W H A T Y O U S A Y

1 Two prisoners whose cells ad-

join communicate with each
other by knocking on the wall. The
wall is the thing which separates
them but is also their means of
communication. Every separation
don’t say it. If it is truthful and not
helpful, don’t say it. If it is not
truthful and helpful, don’t say it. If
it is truthful and helpful, wait for
the right time.
4There is always time to add a

is a link. word, but none in which to take

2Speech is born out of longing. one back.
3The longing for connection. 4The

longing for what is beyond.

4 Let your words be few. 2It
does not require many words

2 Don’t try to figure out what

other people want to hear from
you; figure out what you have to
to speak the truth.
3Don’t give your advice before

you are called upon. 4Speak quietly

say. 2You are what you say. The
quality of your speech reflects the
quality of your soul. 3When speech
comes from a quiet heart, it has the
strength of the orchid, and the fra-
grance of rock. 4If words come out
of the heart, they will enter the
heart, but if they come from the
tongue, they will not pass beyond
the ears.
and kindly and be not forward with
opinions. If you talk much, this will
make you deaf to what others say,
and you should know that there are
few so wise that they cannot learn
from others.
5 Language exerts hidden pow-
er, like the moon on the tides.
2Words that pass between one’s teeth

are meant for something. 3They are

3 Speech is the small change of

silence. 2Let your speech be
better than silence, or be silent. 3If
one of the main means by which
humans do things to each other.
Saying is doing.
it is not truthful and not helpful, 4Words are a form of action.

CHAPTER 1.1. Simone Weil. 1.2. Rabia al-Basri. 1.3. Simon Robb. 1.4. Jan
Myrdal. CHAPTER 2.1. Barbara Kingsolver. 2.2. Rami Shapiro. 2.3. Stephen
Mitchell. 2.4. Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi. CHAPTER 3.1. George Meredith.
3.2. Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 3.3. Islamic saying. 3.4. Baltasar Gracian.
CHAPTER 4.1. The Book of Proverbs. 4.2. Joseph (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt). 4.3.
Desiderius Erasmus. 4.4. Dhammavadaka. CHAPTER 5.1. Rita Mae Brown. 5.2.
Molefi Kete Asante. 5.3. Amos Oz. 5.4. Ingrid Bengis.

79
5They have consequences. 6They cre-
ate conceptions and self-concep-
tions and ultimately nations. They
can start and stop wars. They can
wound and heal. 7They can help us
move or keep us paralyzed. 8They
can change our world. 9Choosing
words carefully is a moral respon-
sibility.
10Put away from you crooked
speech, and put devious talk far
from you. 11Try to dissolve out of
selfishness into a voice beyond those
limits.
6 In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth is a revolu-
tionary act. 2If liberty means any-
thing at all, it means the right to
tell people what they do not want
to hear.

CHAPTER 5.5. Bill Clinton. 5.6. Amos Oz. 5.7. Adrienne Rich. 5.8. Amos Oz.
5.9. Amos Oz. 5.10. The Book of Proverbs. 5.11. Islamic saying. CHAPTER 6.1.
George Orwell. 6.2. George Orwell.

80
 I dream of an older woman holding a ball of clay in her
hands, pressing and molding it with her fingers. 2She
puts it in my hands. I find I am beginning to weep.
3When you rub it between your fingers you can almost feel the life it holds.
4I dream I am sitting in the devil’s company.
5I dream a group of relatives tries to break open a large door with axes

and iron bars.

6I dream I am raped.
7I dream I am chasing the monster out of me.
8I dream I see my mother smiling. 9I am with her. (10When your mother

dies, that is when you know everybody dies.) 11I lift her out of the earth
and look into her eyes for a long time. We stand silent and gaze into each
other.
12I dream that flowers bloom in the streets and that music plays again

on the rooftops, and that kites fly in the skies.

13I dream I am a ghost.
14I dream you are screaming to me for help and I wake up suddenly.
15I dream over and over 16that your deaths were all some sort of misun-

derstanding. I’ll run into you in the middle of a field or on the slope of some
snow-covered mountain. I’m always surprised to see you but you’re always
strangely peaceful. You tell me that you’re dead and we decide to do all the
things you always wanted but never had the opportunity.
17How does it feel to be dead? I say.
18Don’t tell me, I say. I don’t want to hear.

1. Author Unknown. 2. Hamish Keith. 3. Wangari Maathai. 4. Moloko. 5.

Åsne Seierstad. 6. Author Unknown. 7. Moloko. 8. Judy Collins. 9. Abenezer
Frezghi. 10. Jeanne Beskrone. 11. Bruno K. Öijer. 12. Khaled Hosseini, David
Benioff. 13. Author Unknown. 14. Anonymous Acehnese. 15. Farley Malorrus.
16. Matthew Chevien. 17. Ai. 18. Ai.

81
 H A V E A

V I S I O N

1 Far away in the sunshine are

my highest aspirations. I may
not reach them, but I can look up
son like you.)
9Try and be a sheet of paper

with nothing on it. Be a spot of

and see their beauty, believe in
them and try to follow where they
lead.
2We dwell in Possibility.
3I shut my eyes in order to see.
ground where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted,
a seed, possibly, from the Abso-
lute.

2 Imagine what we could be, O,

what we could be.
3 Have a vision. Be demanding.
2Where there is no vision

the people perish. 3Those who lose

2The power of imagination dreaming are lost.
makes us infinite. 3It is more im- 4One person’s vision may not

portant than knowledge. 4It in- be that of another. 5Never limit

volves penetrating something, or
being open to being penetrated by
something, in order to sense its
meaning, its possibilities, its depths.
5Our imagination is stretched to
yourself because of others’ limited
imagination; never limit others be-
cause of your own limited imagina-
tion.

the utmost, not to imagine things

that are not really there, but just to
comprehend those things which
really are there.
6Without imagination we can
go nowhere. 7Whenever we at-
tempt something new or difficult,
4 A dream is the bearer of a
new possibility, the enlarged
horizon, the great hope. 2If the
dream dies, life is a broken-winged
bird, 3a barren field frozen with
snow.
4Go confidently in the direc-

we have to be able to imagine it tion of your dreams. Live the life

before it becomes possible. (8Im- you have imagined. 5The dream is
agine a person like me with a per- always running ahead. To catch up,

CHAPTER 1.1. Louisa May Alcott. 1.2. Emily Dickinson. 1.3. Paul Gauguin.
CHAPTER 2.1. Susan Griffin. 2.2. John Muir. 2.3. Albert Einstein. 2.4. Ted
Loder. 2.5. Richard Feynman. 2.6. Rita Dove. 2.7. Jean Shinoda Bolen. 2.8.
Selima Hill. 2.9. Jalaluddin Rumi. CHAPTER 3.1. Colin Powell. 3.2. The Book of
Proverbs. 3.3. Australian aboriginal saying. 3.4. High Eagle. 3.5. Mae Jemison.
CHAPTER 4.1. Howard Thurman. 4.2. Langston Hughes. 4.3. Langston Hughes.
4.4. Henry David Thoreau. 4.5. Anaïs Nin.

82
to live for a moment in unison
with it, this is the miracle. 6Ac-
knowledged or unacknowledged,
5 Many dreams just rumble
blindly through darkness.
2Deserve your dream. 3If it’s kind

that which dreams through us is of a jigsaw puzzle, comes in pieces,

always there to support us from 4arrange whatever pieces come your

within. way. 5What if something were to

7It does not do to dwell on come of it?
dreams and forget to live, remem- 6It might seem impossible. 7It

ber that. 8Dreams grow holy put in always seems impossible until it’s
action. 9From the action stems the done.
dream again. This interdependence 8Something will come of it.

produces the highest form of living.

CHAPTER 4.6. Laurens van der Post. 4.7. J. K. Rowling. 4.8. Adelaide Proctor.
4.9. Anaïs Nin. CHAPTER 5.1. Niels Frank. 5.2. Octavio Paz. 5.3. Clark Bo-
schult. 5.4. Virginia Woolf. 5.5. Anton Chekhov. 5.6. Gary Wolf. 5.7. Nelson
Mandela. 5.8. Gautama Buddha.

83
 D id you come back last night? I keep expecting you.
2I loved you more than any human being.
3I dream that one day we will be together.
4Dreams are what I am made of.
5I will try to live on earth without you. I will try to live on earth without

you.
6But let me dream. Let me dream.

1. Nadine Gordimer. 2. Ewa Sonnenberg. 3. Elmo Taylor. 4. Clint Echols. 5.

Polina Barskova. 6. Elmo Taylor.

84
 G O

T H R O U G H T H E D O O R

1 At any moment, you have a

choice, that either leads you
closer to your spirit or further away
from it. 2Either you will go through
the door or you will not go through.
The door itself makes no promises.
It is only a door.
cision, and every action responsi-
bility. 3You are the decisive element.
You possess tremendous power to
make life miserable or joyous. You
can be a tool of torture or an in-
strument of inspiration, you can
humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is your response

2 There is the vast mass of

things in the world and the
act of creation that cuts through
that decides whether a crisis is es-
calated or de-escalated, and a per-
son is humanized or dehumanized.
them, divides the things that might 4To choose is also to begin.

happen from those that do. 2Learn to 5Not to decide is to decide.

know ever more deeply: from now 6What’s it going to be then, eh?

on every single thing demands de-

CHAPTER 1.1. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1.2. Adrienne Rich. CHAPTER 2.1. Daniel
Mendelsohn. 2.2. Martin Heidegger. 2.3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 2.4.
Starhawk. 2.5. Harvey Cox. 2.6. Anthony Burgess.

85
 W E W I L L H A V E

O U R R E V O L U T I O N

1 When faced with world prob-

lems—like hunger, overpop-
ulation, nuclear weapons, the arms
trade—you may be among those
who are overwhelmed by a feeling
of “What on earth can I, just one
person, do about this?” 2Imagine:
3A billion people all saying, “It
ognized as essential to change in
huge world systems. 11The world is
moved along, not only by the mighty
shoves of its heroes, but also by
the aggregate of the tiny pushes of
each honest worker.

doesn’t matter what I do because

I’m just one person.”
4Take heart. That’s a sane re-
sponse. 5You are not alone!
6But if you turn that around
2 Things are getting better and
better and worse and worse,
faster and faster. 2We cannot go
on, and we cannot stop. We must
transform. 3We must be born anew.
4It is time to face another way.

and a billion people say, “What I 5We never change the existing

do does make a difference,” then it reality by fighting it. Instead, we

will make a difference. 7Each of us
could make the difference. 8We
must not, in trying to think about
how we can make a big difference,
ignore the small daily difference we
can make which, over time, add up
to big differences that we often
cannot foresee. 9We never know
how our small activities will affect
others through the invisible fabric
of our connectedness.
10This is the basis for a whole
make the old one obsolete. 6De-
cisive historical changes do not come
from great wars, terrible cataclysms,
or ingenious inventions; it is enough
that the heart of humanity incline
its sensitive crown to one side or
the other of the horizon, toward op-
timism or toward pessimism, toward
heroism or toward utility, toward
combat or toward peace.

new attitude to world problems,

where change at the level of the
individual is more and more rec-
3 Revolution begins with the
self. 2The greatest challenge
of the day is: how to bring about a
revolution of the heart, a revolu-

CHAPTER 1.1. Scilla Elworthy. 1.2. John Lennon. 1.3. Jane Goodall. 1.4. Scilla
Elworthy. 1.5. Frederick Franck. 1.6. Jane Goodall. 1.7. R. Buckminster Fuller.
1.8. Marian Wright Edelman. 1.9. Grace Lee Boggs. 1.10. Scilla Elworthy. 1.11.
Helen Keller. CHAPTER 2.1. Tom Atlee. 2.2. Alan Atkisson. 2.3. Jesus. 2.4.
Wendell Berry. 2.5. R. Buckminster Fuller. 2.6. José Ortega y Gasset. CHAP-
TER 3.1. Toni Cade Bambara. 3.2. Dorothy Day.

86
tion which has to start with each
one of us—3a radical reordering
and alteration of our character, and
4 Revolution is change.
2Change is life. 3To exist is

to change, to change is to mature,

all our old habits of thought, feel-
ing and action. 4A great revolution
in just one single individual will
help achieve a change in the des-
tiny of a society and, further, will
to mature is to go on creating your-
self endlessly. 4One moment your
life is a stone in you, and the next,
a star.
5Change is what's difficult. 6Most

enable a change in the destiny of of us are about as eager to be

humankind. 5Personal transforma-
tion can and does have global ef-
fects. As we go, so goes the world,
for the world is us.
6The transformation of the
world is brought about by the
transformation of ourselves.
7Let us have but one thought,
revolution in our hearts. 8Then we
will make a revolution. 9We will lead
a revolution 10that can no more be
checked by the Powers than a prairie
fire by a gardener’s watering pot.
11When we commit ourselves to
the struggle, it must be for a life-
time. 12The spirit of revolution must
not die while our heart continues to
changed as we were to be born,
and go through our changes in a
similar state of shock. 7It takes a lot
of courage to release the familiar
and seemingly secure, to embrace
the new.
8It’s almost impossible for peo-
ple to change alone. (9Nothing chang-
es alone.) 10We need to join with
others who will push us in our
thinking and challenge us to do
things we didn’t believe ourselves
capable of. 11We also need at inter-
vals to separate from family and
companions and go to new places.
We must go without familiars.
12Real change comes when we are

beat. enabled to use our thinking and our

13Promise yourself to live your energy in a new way, using a differ-
life as a revolution. 14Courage to be ent system of thought, different
is the key. 15You have nothing to language, and having fresh visions
lose, but your chains. of the future.

CHAPTER 3.3. Wayne Teasdale. 3.4. Daisaku Ikeda. 3.5. Marianne Williamson.
3.6. Jiddu Krishnamurti. 3.7. Dario Fo. 3.8. Alan Alda. 3.9. H. Rap Brown.
3.10. Judah Philip Benjamin. 3.11. Angela Davis. 3.12. Ernst Toller. 3.13. An-
thony J. D’Angelo. 3.14. Mary Daly. 3.15. Karl Marx. CHAPTER 4.1. Fred
Hampton. 4.2. Alvin Toffler. 4.3. Henri Bergson. 4.4. Rainer Maria Rilke. 4.5.
May Sarton. 4.6. James Baldwin. 4.7. Alan Cohen. 4.8. Frances Moore Lappe.
4.9. Mark J. Stefik. 4.10. Frances Moore Lappe. 4.11. Katharine Butler Hatha-
way. 4.12. Scilla Elworthy.

87
5 How wonderful it is that no-
body need wait a single mo-
ment before starting to improve
6 You really can change the
world if you care enough.
2You can change yourself. 3One act

the world. of kindness a day can do it.

2When we try to bring about 4If you can’t change, then at least

change in our societies, we are be understanding of those who do.

treated first with indifference, then
with ridicule, then with abuse and
then with oppression. And finally
the greatest challenge is thrown at
us. We are treated with respect.
This is the most dangerous stage.
3It is then that we believe that the
work is finished. In fact, this is
usually just the starting point.
7 Be it known: 2We declare our
right on this earth to be a
human being, to be respected as a
human being, to be given the rights
of a human being in this society,
on this earth, in this day, which we
intend to bring into existence.
3We will have our revolution.

CHAPTER 5.1. Anne Frank. 5.2. A. T. Ariyaratne. 5.3. Sally Lawton, Jane Cant-
rell, Jane Harris. CHAPTER 6.1. Marian Wright Edelman. 6.2. Masami Saionji.
6.3. Betty Williams. 6.4. Silken Holler. CHAPTER 7.1. Viktar Žybul. 7.2. Mal-
colm X. 7.3. D. H. Lawrence.

88
 O ne night, something happened. 2I think it was night
anyway, it’s hard to tell. There aren’t any windows.
Sunrise, sundown, you just don’t know. But I woke
up, and there was some sort of 3voice that returned me to myself:
4“Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah. 5A truly noble and intelligent

project. 6Write what should not be forgotten. 7Write what you consider es-
sential, That Which Matters, on being human. 8Tell what you know to be
true. 9Cry to tell what is true.”
10I guess it’s possible that I imagined it. Yes, that’s possible. 11You have

to understand that I was full of drugs—12they had given me drugs—

13always slipping in and out, to the point where it was hard to tell what was

real and what I’d dreamed up. 14But I don’t think I imagined it, because 15I
sensed a startling shift inside. 16I knew with sudden conviction that no mat-
ter how deep my despair, life was always there and its essence was this in-
clusiveness I felt as love; it was big enough to contain whatever sorrow or
brokenness might arise.
17The person I was disappeared, and this sort of new person was

formed.
18My new story was about to begin. It would be one that explores what

happens when, in the face of any circumstance, we choose to have faith in

generosity, kindness, and clear seeing. 19It would be the story of knowing,
even in the midst of great suffering, that we can still belong to life, that
we're not cast out and alone.

1. Sharon Salzberg. 2. Khaled Hosseini. 3. Jalaluddin Rumi. 4. Jalaluddin Rumi.

5. Russell Banks. 6. Isabel Allende. 7. Frederick Franck. 8. Dan Evahema. 9.
Amina Saïd. 10. Alan Lightman. 11. Khaled Hosseini. 12. Stacey Panassidi. 13.
Khaled Hosseini. 14. Alan Lightman. 15. Sharon Salzberg. 16. Sharon Salzberg.
17. Anderson Cooper. 18. Sharon Salzberg. 19. Sharon Salzberg.

89
 20I knew I must start to write. 21The very next day. (22You have to write
what wants to be written.) 23I would find a way to write.
24I wafted like a child into healing sleep. 25Pain, I knew, would come

later. Let it. 26In the depth of winter, I had finally learned that there was
within me an invincible summer.
27It was indeed the turning point of my life.

20. Åsne Seierstad. 21. Billie Piper. 22. Madeleine L’Engle. 23. Dan Barden.
24. Robert Friend. 25. Robert Friend. 26. Albert Camus. 27. Bede Griffiths.

90
 L O V E A N D C O M P A S S I O N

A R E N E C E S S I T I E S

1 To live in this world you must

be able to do three things: to
love what is mortal; to hold it
against your bones knowing your
own life depends on it; and, when
the time comes to let it go, to let it
go.
2Learn this well, and learn it
well: 3Love and compassion are
necessities, not luxuries. Without
them, humanity cannot survive.
4Whereas love is wanting others to
be happy, compassion is wanting
them to be free from suffering, and
doing what we can to bring this
about.
5Let me put it another way:
6Love is the inner feeling and com-
passion is its expression. There-
fore, love and compassion are two
sides of the same coin; they coex-
ist.
3 Oh, love! Who’s to say what it
is? It’s like the verb for “hope”
and “wait.” It has no single mean-
ing. 2The Eskimos had fifty-two
names for snow because it was
important to them: there ought to
be as many for love. 3Love is the
single magic, the single power, the
single salvation. 4It is the subtlest
force, 5the most powerful and still
the most unknown energy of the
world, 6not possible to vanquish by
any threat, however dire, in any
ordeal, however terrible, to which
it may be put.
7Love as a power can go any-
where, 8can accomplish anything
and everything. 9It isn’t sentimen-
tal. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It
doesn’t deny pain.
4 Love is misunderstood to be
an emotion; actually, it is a

2 Love once said to me, “I

know a song, would you like
to hear it?” And laughter came
from every brick in the street and
from every pore in the sky.
state of awareness, a way of being
in the world, a way of seeing one-
self and others. 2It is a choice—a
willingness to be present to others
without pretense or guile. 3It is,
above all else, the gift of oneself.

CHAPTER 1.1. Mary Oliver. 1.2. Khaled Hosseini. 1.3. The XIVth Dalai Lama.
1.4. Kathleen McDonald. 1.5. Charlie Louvin. 1.6. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.
CHAPTER 2. Teresa of Avila. CHAPTER 3.1. Harriet Doerr. 3.2. Margaret At-
wood. 3.3. Hermann Hesse. 3.4. Mahatma Gandhi. 3.5. Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin. 3.6. Nilakanta Sri Ram. 3.7. Sharon Salzberg. 3.8. Mata Amritan-
andamayi Devi. 3.9. Sharon Salzberg. CHAPTER 4.1. David R. Hawkins. 4.2.
Carter Heyward. 4.3. Jean Anouilh.

91
5 Love and attachment are two
different things. Love means
giving selflessly, excluding none
and including all. Attachment is
possessing something. In reality, it
is bondage. There is a vast differ-
ence.
2Love is what is left when you’ve
let go of all the things you love.
3We need, in love, to practice only
this: letting each other go. For
7 The beginning of love is a
horror of emptiness. 2We take
people into the space that is our-
selves. It is the first step toward
dismantling the barriers of the
world. 3Love recognizes no barri-
ers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences,
penetrates walls to arrive at its des-
tination full of hope. 4Nothing ex-
ists between heart and heart.
5I could also say that 6the be-

holding on comes easily; we do not ginning of love is to let those we

need to learn it. love be perfectly themselves, and
not to twist them to fit our own

6 Love is or it ain’t. Thin love

ain’t love at all.
2Let love be genuine. 3It is pa-
image. Otherwise we love only the
reflection of ourselves we find in
them.
tient, it is kind, it is not envious or 7We must uncenter our minds

boastful or arrogant or rude. It from ourselves.

does not insist on its own way; it is
not irritable or resentful; it does
not rejoice in wrongdoing, but re-
joices in the truth. It bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things. It never
ends.
4Love does not dominate; it
cultivates. 5It makes our soul crawl
out from its hiding place. 6It takes
off masks that we fear we cannot
live without and know we cannot
live within. 7It bears us away where
there is no longer any shore.
8 Let us love one another. 2The
lesson is that simple, just to
clean our hearts and let love be
there, 3without role, without power
plays. 4There is no logic in this. It
is beyond logic. So do not try to be
rational about love. It like trying to
give reasons for the river to flow,
for the breeze to be cool and gen-
tle, for the moon to glow, for the
sky to be expansive, for the ocean
to be vast and deep, or for the
flower to be fragrant and beautiful.

CHAPTER 5.1. Sri Swami Rama. 5.2. Jnaneshvara Bharati. 5.3. Rainer Maria
Rilke. CHAPTER 6.1. Toni Morrison. 6.2. Paul the Apostle. 6.3. Paul the Apos-
tle. 6.4. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 6.5. Zora Neale Hurston. 6.6. James
Baldwin. 6.7. Diwan al-Hallaj. CHAPTER 7.1. Robert Bly. 7.2. Joan Chittister.
7.3. Maya Angelou. 7.4. Rabia al-Basri. 7.5. Milton Hindus. 7.6. Thomas Mer-
ton. 7.7. Robinson Jeffers. CHAPTER 8.1. The First Epistle of John. 8.2. Im-
macule’e Ilibagiza. 8.3. Rita Mae Brown. 8.4. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.

92
9 To love at all is to be vulner-
able. Love anything, and your
heart will certainly be wrung and
possibly broken. If you want to
make sure of keeping it intact, you
must give your heart to no one, not
even to an animal. Wrap it carefully
round with hobbies and little luxu-
ries; avoid all entanglements; lock it
up safe in the casket or coffin of
your selfishness. But in that casket—
safe, dark, motionless, airless—it
will change. It will not be broken;
it will become unbreakable, impen-
etrable.
2When we no longer love, we no
longer live.
10 The moment we have in
our hearts this extraordi-
nary thing called love and feel the
depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it,
we discover that, for us, the world is
transformed. 2Through our love for
each other, we learn to express our
love for the whole of humanity and
all beings. 3(If we touch one thing
with deep awareness, we touch eve-
rything.) 4There is no situation that
is not transformable. There is no
person who is hopeless. There is
no set of circumstances that can-
not be turned about by our natural
CHAPTER 9.1. C. S. Lewis. 9.2. George Sand. CHAPTER 10.1. Jiddu Krishna-
murti. 10.2. Thich Nhat Hanh. 10.3. Thich Nhat Hanh. 10.4. Desmond Tutu.
10.5. Leonardo Boff. 10.6. Mary Oliver. 10.7. Galileo Galilei. 10.8. Hafiz.
CHAPTER 11.1. Ursula LeGuin. 11.2. Rosalie Quinlan. 11.3. Charlotte Perkins
Gilman. 11.4. David R. Hawkins. CHAPTER 12.1. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 12.2.
Native American saying.
93
capacity for love of the deepest
sort.
5Love leads us to identify ever
more with the earth, for love is the
great unifying and integrating pow-
er of the universe. 6It’s love almost
too fierce to endure, the bee nuz-
zling like that into the blouse of
the rose. And the fragrance, and
the honey, and of course, the sun,
the purely pure sun, shining, all the
while, over all of us. 7The sun, with
all those planets revolving around
it and dependent upon it, can still
ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had
nothing else in the universe to do.
8It never says to the earth, “You
owe me.” Look what happens with
a love like that. It lights up the
whole sky.
11 Love doesn't just sit there
like a stone; it has to be
made, like bread, remade all the
time, made new. 2It is made by
hand; 3it grows by service. 4The
more we give love, the greater our
capacity to do so.
12 If you want others to be
happy, practice compas-
sion. If you want to be happy,
practice compassion. 2Walk with
the pain of the world.
3 True compassion does not
come from wanting to help out
those less fortunate than ourselves.
4It is a firm commitment founded
on 5a keen awareness of the inter-
dependence of all living beings,
which are all part of one another,
and all involved in one another.
6Compassion implies that the suf-
fering of the world is my suffering.
7Compassion makes no dis-
tinction between good and bad
people. It cannot draw a line be-
tween two countries, two faiths or
two religions. It has no ego; thus
sear and break our hearts, be-
cause we can no longer keep them
closed. We’ve seen too much now.
To some degree or other, we have
surrendered into service and are
willing to pay the price of compas-
sion. 3But with it comes the joy of
a single, caring act. With it comes
the honor of participating in a gen-
erous process in which one rises
each day and does what one can.
With it comes the simple, singular
grace of being an instrument of
love, in whatever form, to what-
ever end.
4We cannot heal the wounds

there is no fear. Everything passes we do not feel.

through it. 5Like it or not, this is what

love is. Terrible. Glorious.

13 All of us have this heart

that, when we see another
6Be willing to be split open.

person suffer, we suffer, too. Take an

example: a man looks out; a child
is about to fall into a well. No mat-
ter who the man is, his heart will
flip-flop, and he will feel the child’s
predicament; and not because he
14 True compassion is always
full of power, and those
that are powerful in the true way
are full of tenderness. 2The giving
and receiving of tenderness heals.
3Every situation, properly per-

expects to get something out of it ceived, becomes an opportunity to

from the child’s parents, or be- heal.
cause he wants praise, or anything 4Touch with a lighter hand.

like that. From this we can see that 5It is not enough to feel com-

it is human to have a heart that passionate. We must act. 6However

sympathizes with pain. many holy words we read, however
2The pain of the world will many we speak, what good will they

CHAPTER 12.3. Pema Chödrön. 12.4. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 12.5. Thomas
Merton. 12.6. Judith Thompson. 12.7. Mata Amritananamayi Devi. CHAPTER
13.1. Mencius. 13.2. Ram Dass. 13.3. Ram Dass. 13.4. S. R. Smalley. 13.5.
Nadine Gordimer. 13.6. Natalie Goldberg. CHAPTER 14.1. Jiddu Krishnamurti.
14.2. Lynda Evans. 14.3. Helen Shucman, William Thetford. 14.4. Gwendolyn
Brooks. 14.5. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 14.6. Gautama Buddha.

94
do if we do not act upon them?
7Words mean nothing. Action is
the only thing. 8A rare and difficult
thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a
miracle.
9Acting with compassion is not
nowhere at first, but we may be
planting a seed we can’t see right
now. We need to just do the best
we can and then trust in an un-
folding we can’t design or ordain.
12The life we touch for good or ill

doing good because we think we
ought to. It is being drawn to ac-
tion by heart-felt passion. It is giv-
ing ourselves into what we are
doing, being present in the mo-
will touch another life, and that in
turn another, until who knows
where the trembling stops or in
what far place our touch will be felt.
13The flower of kindness will

ment—no matter how difficult, sad grow. Maybe not now, but it will
or even boring it feels, no matter some day.
how much it demands. It is acting 14Do not consider any act of

from our deepest understanding of kindness insignificant. 15Nothing is

what life is, listening intently for
the skillful means in each situation,
and not compromising the truth. It
is working with others in a selfless
way, in a spirit of mutual respect.
10It’s as simple as giving a hand
to someone who stumbles or pick-
ing up a child who has fallen on
the floor. We take such direct,
natural actions every day of our
lives without considering them
special. And they’re not special.
Each is simply the best possible
response to that situation in that
moment.
11Any ordinary favor we do for
someone or any compassionate
reaching out may seem to be going
insignificant. 16What you do in re-
sponse to the ocean of suffering
may seem insignificant, but it is
very important that you do it. 17No
act of kindness, no matter how
small, is ever wasted. 18No one
could make a greater mistake than
the one who did nothing because he
or she could do only a little. 19The
effect of one good-hearted person
is incalculable.
15 Life’s persistent and most
urgent question is “What
are you doing for others?” 2Think
of what can be done rather than
worrying about what cannot.
3People are so in need, in need

CHAPTER 14.7. Ernest J. Gaines. 14.8. Simon Weil. 14.9. Ram Dass. 14.10.
Bernie Glassman. 14.11. Sharon Salzberg. 14.12. Frederick Buechner. 14.13.
Robert Alana. 14.14. Muhammad. 14.15. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 14.16. Ma-
hatma Gandhi. 14.17. Aesop. 14.18. Edmund Burke. 14.19. Oscar Arias
Sánchez. CHAPTER 15.1. Martin Luther King, Jr. 15.2. Wangari Maathai. 15.3.
Gwendolyn Brooks.

95
of help. People want so much that
they do not know. 4Be kind, for
everyone you meet is fighting a
hard battle. 5Have compassion for
them even if they don’t want it.
What seems conceit, bad manners,
or cynicism is always a sign of
things no ears have heard, no eyes
have seen. You do not know what
wars are going on down there
where the spirit meets the bone.
6Treat everyone as if they were what
they ought to be and you help
them to become what they are ca-
other people.
16 This is my simple religion.
There is no need for tem-
ples; no need for complicated phi-
losophy. Our own brain, our own
heart is our temple; the philosophy
is kindness. 2Whatever we wish that
other people would do to us, we do so
to them. 3We regard the state of
others as our own, the houses of
others as our own, the persons of
others as our self.
4We are made kind by being

pable of being. kind. 5Want to do good things e-

7Wherever there is a human be-
ing, there is an opportunity for
kindness. 8Do whatever is within
your power. 9You can do only what
you can do. But if you do that each
day, you can sleep at night and do
it again the next day. 10Truly it
seems that we are never so alive as
when we concern ourselves with
ven if you do not get anything in
return. Let it be the joy of your life
to do them. 6Not a duty. Joy.
17 What would it mean to
live in a world whose peo-
ple were changing each other’s
despair into hope?—
We ourselves must change it.

CHAPTER 15.4. Plato. 15.5. Miller Williams. 15.6. Johann Wolfang von Goethe.
15.7. Seneca. 15.8. Wangari Maathai. 15.9. Albert Schweitzer. 15.10. Harry
Chapin. CHAPTER 16.1. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 16.2. Jesus. 16.3. Mo-tzu.
16.4. Eric Hoffer. 16.5. Emmanuel Swedenborg. 16.6. Zoroaster. CHAPTER
17. Adrienne Rich.

96
 T his is my country. I love it. 2It is the land where my
parents and children sleep, where is spoken that lan-
guage in which the chosen of my heart, blushing,
whispered the first word of love. 3I kiss its soil. 4I hope that I will be buried
right in the heart of it.
5I only wish that my country were a more open society.
6I’m not so blind with patriotism that I can’t face reality. Wrong is

wrong, no matter who does it or says it.

7I had not thought that it would be like this.

1. Said Zahari. 2. Guiseppe Mazzini. 3. Pope John Paul II. 4. Wangari Maathai.
5. Said Zahari. 6. Malcolm X. 7. Charles Causley.

97
 W E A R E

C I T I Z E N S O F T H E W O R L D

1 I love my country dearly.

2The love of one’s country

is a splendid thing. But why should

love stop at the border? 3To me, it
seems a dreadful indignity to have
a soul controlled by geography.
4The world’s map no longer con-
cerns me. 5Love cannot be meas-
ured in longitude or latitude. 6I
know no South, no North, no
East, no West to which I owe my
allegiance. 7My heart orbits the
Earth.
8Look at the maps of the world
carefully, study them, memorize.
Take a full breath. Now: leave all
the maps behind.
to which we owe our allegiance. It
is also owed to justice, and to hu-
manity. 7Love for one’s country
which is not part of one’s love for
humanity is not love, but idola-
trous worship. 8It is an abeyance of
our human reason. It is a profound
failure, both intellectually and mor-
ally.
3 The home of a great soul is
the whole world. 2To the one in
whom love dwells, 3there is no sense
of nationalism, only a cosmic con-
sciousness of belonging to the hu-
man family. 4Our true nationality is
humankind.

2 I do not mean to exclude al-

together the idea of patriot-
ism. 2I like to see people proud of
the place in which they live. I like to
see people live so that their place
will be proud of them. 3Love your
country, 4not because it is great,
but because it is your own.
5But patriotism is not enough.
6Our country is not the only thing
4 We are citizens of the world;
and the tragedy of our times
is that we do not know this. 2All
the nations and peoples are too
closely knit together for any one of
them to imagine that it can live
apart. Peace has been said to be
indivisible; so is freedom, so is
prosperity, and so also is disaster in
this one world that can no longer

CHAPTER 1.1. Pete Seeger. 1.2. Pablo Casals. 1.3. George Santayana. 1.4. Ni-
zar Qabbani. 1.5. Valentine Sterling. 1.6. Henry Clay. 1.7. Valentine Sterling.
1.8. Chellis Glendinning. CHAPTER 2.1. George Washington. 2.2. Abraham
Lincoln. 2.3. Guiseppe Mazzini. 2.4. Seneca. 2.5. Edith Cavell. 2.6. James
Bryce. 2.7. Erich Fromm. 2.8. Camillo Bica. CHAPTER 3.1. Democritus. 3.2.
Gautama Buddha. 3.3. Rosika Schwimmer. 3.4. H. G. Wells. CHAPTER 4.1.
Woodrow Wilson. 4.2. Jawaharlal Nehru.

98
be split into isolated fragments. no nations, because there will be
3If we don’t come to under- no humanity.
stand that right soon, there will be 4One world or none.

CHAPTER 4.3. Isaac Asimov. 4.4. Stuart Chase.

99
 O U R

N E I G H B O R’ S F A C E

1 We are now able to soar into

outer space and reach up to
the moon, but we are not moral
not understand. If you punish that
person, you only hurt yourself.
4It is easier to love humanity as

enough to live at peace with our a whole than to love our neighbor.
neighbor! 5It is easy to love those who are far

away. It isn’t always easy to love

2 Who is our neighbor? 2Our

neighbor is a human being, like
us. 3Our neighbor is the person who
those who are right next to us.
6If we cannot love our neigh-

bor as ourself, it is because we do

needs us. 4Our neighbor is our other
self dwelling behind a wall.
5In understanding, all walls shall
fall down.
not perceive our neighbor as our-
self. We perceive the neighbor as
precisely not ourself, but as a po-
tential threat (or potential aid) to
ourself. 7If we are to love our

3 Love your neighbor. 2Love

your neighbor as yourself,
3like something which you yourself
are. For all souls are one. Each is a
spark from the original soul, and
this soul is wholly inherent in all
souls, just as your soul is in all
members of your body. It may
happen that your hand makes a
mistake and hits you. But would
you then take a stick and punish
your hand because it lacked un-
derstanding, and so increase your
pain? It is the same if your neigh-
bor, who is of one soul with you,
wrongs you because he or she does
neighbor, before doing anything
else we must see our neighbor. With
our imagination as well as our eyes.
We must see not just our neighbor’s
face, but the life behind and within
that face.
4 The love of our neighbor in
all its fullness simply means
being able to say, “What are you
going through? 2Can I be of serv-
ice? I won’t save you. You won’t
save me. We won’t save the world.
But maybe we could make it just a
little bit better.”

CHAPTER 1. Sri Sathya Sai Baba. CHAPTER 2.1. The Gospel According to Luke.
2.2. Shlomo Riskin. 2.3. Elbert Hubbard. 2.4. Kahlil Gibran. 2.5. Kahlil Gib-
ran. CHAPTER 3.1. Thales of Miletus. 3.2. The Book of Leviticus. 3.3. Shmuel
Shmelke. 3.4. Eric Hoffer. 3.5. Mother Teresa. 3.6. Beatrice Bruteau. 3.7.
Frederick Buechner. CHAPTER 4.1. Simone Weil. 4.2. Cornel West.

100
 F A U L T S A R E T H I C K

W H E R E L O V E I S T H I N

1 Love is all we have, the only

way that each can help the
other. 2Take away love and our
earth is a tomb.
3Our task is not to seek for
love, but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within ourselves that
we have built against it. 4The per-
son who doesn’t fit in with our
notions of who is worthy of our
love is just the person who, by not
fitting into our patterns, insists that
with our neighbor depends to a
large extent on the capacity for
getting along with ourselves. Self-
respecting individuals will try to be
as tolerant of their neighbor’s short-
comings as they are of their own.
3 Why do we see the speck that
is in our brother or sister’s eye,
but do not notice the log that is in
our own eye?
2Faults are thick where love is

we expand not only our views but
also our capacity to love.
5We don’t love because people
deserve it. We love because they
are human beings. 6Love does not
measure, it just gives.
thin. 3Offer more light, rather than
blame and condemnation. 4Condem-
nation does not liberate, it op-
presses. 5Condemn none. 6Learn to
regard people less in light of what
they do or omit to do, and more in
the light of what they suffer. 7If

2 We rarely take a breath with-

out making a judgment. 2When
we judge another, we do not define
you can stretch out a helping hand,
do so. If you cannot, fold your
hands, bless your brothers and sis-
them, we define ourselves. ters, and let them go their own way.
3The capacity for getting along

CHAPTER 1.1. Euripedes. 1.2. Robert Browning. 1.3. Jalaluddin Rumi. 1.4.
Daphne Rose Kingma. 1.5. Immacule’e Ilibigiza. 1.6. Mother Teresa. CHAP-
TER 2.1. Ezra Bayda. 2.2. Wayne Dyer. 2.3. Eric Hoffer. CHAPTER 3.1. Jesus.
3.2. James Howell. 3.3. Dhammavadaka. 3.4. Carl Jung. 3.5. Vivekananda. 3.6.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 3.7. Vivekananda.

101
 D uring my time in prison I have had medical prob-
lems. 2I was sick before I came here, but I am very
sick now. 3They tell me I am going to die. 4I accept
the diagnosis. 5Why don't I seem to care? My cup is full. Let it spill.
6Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die. 7I am a part of

all that I have met. 8This has been my life; I found it worth living. 9That
doesn't mean I have always done things well. 10I have walked through many
lives, some of them my own. 11I have found so many ways to disgrace my-
self, and throw a dark cloth over my head. 12But I have no secrets.
13I am free and my heart is at rest—it is widened. 14I am not who I was.
15Strange to no longer desire one’s desires. Strange to see meanings that

clung together once, floating away in every direction.

16I take a deep breath and listen to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am.

I am.
17Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the

grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence—18silence like the
one before the world. 19To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget
time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
20We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past.
21The real high point of my life is still to come. 22If I stepped out of my

body I would break into blossom.

23I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready.

1. Phuntsog Nyidron. 2. Mahmoud Abu Rideh. 3. Robert Friend. 4. Kata Ku-

lavkova. 5. Robert Friend. 6. Amelia Burr. 7. Alfred Lord Tennyson. 8. Ber-
trand Russell. 9. Robert Bly. 10. Stanley Kunitz. 11. Robert Bly. 12. Mahmoud
Abu Rideh. 13. Åsne Seierstad. 14. Stanley Kunitz. 15. Rainer Maria Rilke. 16.
Sylvia Plath. 17. Oscar Wilde. 18. Ronalds Briedis. 19. Oscar Wilde. 20. Derek
Walcott. 21. Karl Rahner. 22. James Wright. 23. August Wilson.

102
 W H O I S

T H E E N E M Y ?

1 Our enemy is the best teacher.

2It is the enemy who can truly

teach us to practice the virtues of

compassion and tolerance.
3 Listen to your enemy, for
“God” is talking.
realize that this person was the help-
less pawn of greed; that this person
was trapped in fear; and hence
acted out toward you. But you
should not hate this person in return;
you should feel compassion! Most
people we perceive as “antago-

2 Love your enemies! If you

love only those who love you,
what reward is there for that? If
you are kind only to your friends,
how are you different from anyone
else?
2It is easy enough to be friend-
nists” are merely struggling indi-
viduals trapped in their bounded
worldview, desperately trying to
pursue their own happiness. They
are lost souls in desperate need of
assistance.
7See them as human beings.

ly to your friends. But to befriend 8Each is a someone. 9Each is a per-

those who regard themselves as your son. 10Each is a story. 11Each is a

enemy is the quintessence of true life.
religion. The other is mere busi- 12Get into the heart and mind

ness. of your adversaries. That’s the key to

everything. 13In the moment when

3 Am I the one you hate?

2 Just who is the enemy?
3Whose enemy are you?
(4You don’t know whose en-
emy you are. 5You don’t want to be
thought of in that way.)
6Enemy: when you look close-
ly, you see that this person is not
filled with intrinsic hatefulness. You
we truly understand our enemies,
then in that very moment we also
love them. 14When we understand
the needs that motivate our own
and others’ behavior, we have no
enemies. 15When compassion aris-
es, the enemy disappears.
4 Love is the only force capable

CHAPTER 1.1. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 1.2. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 1.3. Jewish
saying. CHAPTER 2.1. Jesus. 2.2. Mahatma Gandhi. CHAPTER 3.1. Jesse Allen
Anderson. 3.2. Tariq A. al-Maeena. 3.3. Erkki Kuismai. 3.4. Nadine Gordimer.
3.5. Richard Shapiro. 3.6. Robert Thurman. 3.7. Thubten Chodron. 3.8. Dan-
iel Mendelsohn. 3.9. Ananta Kumar Giri. 3.10. Ibn Alrafidain. 3.11. Reneé
Epelbaum. 3.12. Alister Sparks. 3.13. Orson Scott Card. 3.14. Marshall Rosen-
berg. 3.15. Osho. CHAPTER 4.1. Martin Luther King, Jr.

103
of transforming an enemy into
friend. 2From where then is love to
come—love for your enemy that is
the way of liberty? From forgive-
ness. Forgiven, they go free of you,
and you of them; they are to you as
sunlight on a green branch.
3Loving your enemy doesn’t
make you a doormat. You do not
lie down and say, “Go ahead, step
on me again.” Doormats are pas-
social situation, to take power from
those who misuse it—at which
point they can become human too.
5 When your enemy falls, do
not rejoice. When your en-
emy stumbles, do not be glad.
Your glee will corrupt you, your
ego will trick you into thinking that
you and your enemy are different.
2You and your “enemy” are one.

sive; loving your enemy is an act 3If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

of the heart. You may never change if she is thirsty, give her drink.
the person who has wronged you, 4No one is to be called an en-

but in the course of loving an en- emy. We have no enemy except

emy, the life that is transformed is
your own.
4Sometimes loving your enemy is
manifest in putting your arms not
around the person but around the
ourselves. 5If there is no enemy
within, the enemy without can do
us no harm.

CHAPTER 4.2. Wendell Berry. 4.3. Mary Mannin Morrissey. 4.4. Bayard Rustin.
CHAPTER 5.1. Samuel the Younger. 5.2. Steven Crisp. 5.3. Paul the Apostle.
5.4. Francis of Assisi. 5.5. African saying.

104
 I would like to thank the interrogator and all of his assis-
tants who permitted me during this period in captivity
to make peace with myself.
2I bear no animosity. 3I don’t have this sense of vengeance or feel bitter

about what has happened to me. 4I judge no one. 5It is not a question of
forgiveness. 6There is nothing to forgive. 7People did what they did, they
were under unimaginable pressure and stress.
8It’s complicated.

1. Elias Khoury. 2. Tran Manh Quynh. 3. Said Zahari. 4. Daniel Mendelsohn.

5. J. M. Coetzee. 6. Dith Pran. 7. Daniel Mendelsohn. 8. Josef Adler.

105
 S U B V E R T A N G E R

W I T H F O R G I V E N E S S

1 One day I upended a huge oak

tree and saw that it had no
roots. Furious, I razed the whole
forest.
2Anger is an acid that can do
more harm to the vessel in which it
stands than to anything on which it
is poured. 3When it arises, think of
the consequences.
4If you are patient in one mo-
ment of anger, you will escape a
hundred days of sorrow.
forgive. 2To lick our wounds, to
smack our lips over grievances long
past, to roll over our tongue the
prospect of bitter confrontations
still to come, to save to the last
toothsome morsel both the pain we
are given and the pain we are giving
back—in many ways it is a feast fit
for a king. The chief drawback is
that what we are wolfing down is
ourselves. We are the skeleton at the
feast.

2 Subvert anger by forgiveness,

2the fragrance the violet sheds

on the heel that has crushed it.

3Forgiveness is our greatest need.
4Without it there is no future. 5With-
out it life is governed by an endless
cycle of resentment and retaliation,
6locked into a sequence of outrage
and revenge, tit for tat, escalating
always.
7Blood cannot be washed out
with blood.
4 Forgiveness doesn’t happen
by accident. 2It’s a decision.
3It is making the choice to find no
more value in anger, 4the choice to
follow love through to its comple-
tion. 5It is the final form of love.
6Until we have seen someone’s
darkness, we don’t really know who
that person is. Until we have for-
given someone’s darkness, we don’t
really know what love is.
7It’s not a question of whether

someone deserves to be forgiven.

3 When a deep injury is done to

us, we never recover until we
We’re not forgiving them for their
sake. We’re doing it for ourselves.

CHAPTER 1.1. Adda Djørup. 1.2. Author Unknown. 1.3. Confucius. 1.4. Chi-
nese saying. CHAPTER 2.1. Samanasuttam. 2.2. Mark Twain. 2.3. Edna Ballard.
2.4. Desmond Tutu. 2.5. Robert Assagioli. 2.6. Lance Morrow. 2.7. Afghan
saying. CHAPTER 3.1. Alan Paton. 3.2. Frederick Buechner. CHAPTER 4.1.
Mary Mannin Morrissey. 4.2. Randall Worley. 4.3. Gerald G. Jampolsky. 4.4.
Edna Ballard. 4.5. Reinhold Niebuhr. 4.6. Edna Ballard. 4.7. Doc Childre,
Howard Martin.

106
For our own health and well-being.
5 The more anger towards the
past we carry in our heart, the
less capable we are of loving in the
present. 2We cannot change the
past, but we can change our atti-
tude toward it.
3Anger makes us smaller, while
forgiveness forces us to grow be-
yond what we were. 4It is an act of
the imagination. It dares us to im-
agine a better future, one that is
based on the blessed possibility
that our hurt will not be the final
word on the matter. It challenges
us to give up our destructive thoughts
about the situation. It builds confi-
dence that we can survive the pain
and grow from it.
5In order to be free, we must
learn how to let the anger go. Re-
lease the hurt. Release the fear.
Refuse to entertain the old pain.
6Reject the sense of injury and
the injury itself disappears.
6 Let me be clear: 2Forgiveness
is not pretending that things
are other than the way they are.
3 It is not the misguided act of
condoning irresponsible, hurtful
behavior. Nor is it a superficial
turning of the other cheek that
CHAPTER 5.1. Barbara De Angelis. 5.2. Maya Angelou. 5.3. Cherie Carter-
Scott. 5.4. Larry James. 5.5. Mary Mannin Morrissey. 5.6. Marcus Aurelius.
CHAPTER 6.1. Mikheil Saakashvili. 6.2. Desmond Tutu. 6.3. Joan Borysenko.
6.4. Jack Kornfield. 6.5. Jack Kornfield. 6.6. Ken Hart. 6.7. Richard Rohr.
CHAPTER 7.1. Joan Borysenko. 7.2. Real Live Preacher. 7.3. Karyl Huntley.
7.4. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
107
leaves us feeling victimized and
martyred. 4It does not mean that
we have to continue to relate to
those who have done us harm. 5It
does not mean we will allow injus-
tice again.
6Forgiveness does not equal
forgetting. It is about healing the
memory of the harm, not erasing
it. 7In the spiritual life, nothing
goes away. There is no heavenly
garbage dump. It’s all here, wher-
ever we are. Everything belongs.
7 Forgiveness is a process through
which we seek to free our-
selves from the bondage to an-
other person that is maintained for
as long as we stand in judgment of
them. It is the finishing of old bus-
iness that allows us to experience
the present free of contamination
from the past.
2Forgiveness does not always
lead to a healed relationship. Some
people are not capable of love, and
it might be wise to let them go a-
long with our anger. We wish them
well, and let them go their way.
3We know we have forgiven
someone when he or she has
harmless passage through our mind.
4We tend to feel sorrow over the
circumstance instead of rage. We
tend to have nothing left to say of our unforgiveness. 2Tear out
about it at all. arrogance and seed humility.
3Do not let the sun go down

8 The weak can never forgive.

Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. 2Never does the human
soul appear so strong as when it
forgoes revenge, and dares forgive
an injury.
3A wind has blown the rain
away and blown the sky away and
all the leaves away, and the trees
stand.
4Be strong in the way a tree or
on your anger. 4Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor
and slander be put away from you,
with all malice, and be kind. 5For-
give, forgive, and forgive some
more; never stop forgiving, for the
temptation to project and judge
will always be there.

blade of grass is: rooted, willing to

lean, and at peace with what is
around it. 5Nothing is so strong as
gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as
real strength.
10 And this, then, is the vi-
sion of that heaven of
which we have heard, where those
who love each other have forgiven
each other, where, for that, the
leaves are green, the light a music
in the air, and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.

9 Pride is at the root of much

CHAPTER 8.1. Mahatma Gandhi. 8.2. E. H. Chapin. 8.3. e. e. cummings. 8.4.

Natalie Goldberg. 8.5. Francis de Sales. CHAPTER 9.1. Goldie Bristol. 9.2.
Maya Angelou. 9.3. Paul the Apostle. 9.4. Paul the Apostle. 9.5. Gerald G.
Jampolsky. CHAPTER 10. Wendell Berry.

108
ing cheek.)
M aybe I scare you. Do I scare you? Are you fright-
ened of me? (2They say I am evil. 3An evil soul
producing holy witness is like a villain with a smil-

4I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn’t know where to die.
5It’s my life. Don’t you understand? It’s my life!
6I feel restless, I cannot sleep, my chest is tight. 7Every breath hurts.
8How can I now compose verses? How can I now write? After the

shackles and the nights and the suffering and the tears? I am a captive, but
the crimes are my captors’.
9My hands are shaking. I can barely write. I look at my hands, wrinkled

yellow skin, veins crossing and branching. I look at my pencil, stubby and
blunt like a dull knife.
10I love life! 11I don’t belong here. 12I’m not supposed to be here! 13I

hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.

1. Khaled Hosseini. 2. Socrates. 3. William Shakespeare. 4. Antonio Gramsci.

5. Frank Darabont. 6. Åsne Seierstad. 7. Anne Higgins. 8. Sami al-Hajj. 9.
Alan Lightman. 10. Frederick Franck. 11. John Corapi. 12. Frank Darabont.
13. Wallis Simpson.

109
 F O R G I V E

Y O U R O W N M I S T A K E S

1 Be gentle first with yourself,

if you wish to be gentle with
others. 2Be gentle with yourself,
learn to love yourself, to forgive
yourself, for only as we have the
right attitude toward ourselves can
we have the right attitude toward
others.
have done your best. 10When you
begin to take your failures non-
seriously, it means you are ceasing
to be afraid of them. It is of im-
mense importance to learn to laugh
at yourself.
3 We stumble and fall con-
stantly even when we are

2 Perfect is for another world.

2If you live, you will make

mistakes—it is inevitable. 3Do not

fear them—4they are a fact of life.
5They have their not unimportant
place. 6If you shut the door to them,
truth will be shut out.
7We pay a heavy price for our
most enlightened. 2This thing we
call “failure” is not the falling
down, but the staying down. 3The
greatest glory in living lies in rising
every time we fall. 4If you fell
down yesterday, stand up today.
5Fall seven times, stand up eight.
6If we fall, we don’t need self-

fear of failure. It is a powerful ob- recrimination or blame or anger—

stacle to growth. It assures the
progressive narrowing of the per-
sonality and prevents exploration
and experimentation. There is no
learning without some difficulty
and fumbling. If you want to keep
on learning, you must keep on risk-
ing failure—all your life.
8Failing is not a crime. 9Do
not allow yourself to be disheart-
ened by any failure as long as you
we need a reawakening of our in-
tention and a willingness to re-
commit, to be wholehearted once
again. 7Often we can achieve an
even better result when we stumble
yet are willing to start over, when
we don’t give up after a mistake,
when something doesn’t come eas-
ily but we throw ourselves into
trying, when we’re not afraid to
appear less than perfectly polished.

CHAPTER 1.1. Thubten Yeshe. 1.2. Wilfred Peterson. CHAPTER 2.1. Lisa
Smartt. 2.2. Maya Angelou. 2.3. Benjamin Franklin. 2.4. Nikki Giovanni. 2.5.
May Sarton. 2.6. Rabindranath Tagore. 2.7. John William Gardner. 2.8. Wan-
gari Maathai. 2.9. Mother Teresa. 2.10. Katherine Mansfield. CHAPTER 3.1.
Thomas Merton. 3.2. Mary Pickford. 3.3. Nelson Mandela. 3.4. H. G. Wells.
3.5. Japanese saying. 3.6. Sharon Salzberg. 3.7. Sharon Salzberg.

110
 8Itis the response to error that
counts. 9Concern yourself not with
what you tried and failed in, but
with what it is still possible for you
to do.
4 We need to find the hidden
corners of our lives where we
have not forgiven ourselves—for
who we are, for who we are not.
And it is not always easy. Some-
times we have to dig through tragic
emotional wreckage. Sometimes we
have to rip open scars we think
have long been healed. Sometimes
we have to tear down beautifully
crafted psychological edifices. But
to live with a pure heart and open
spirit, we must have the courage to
face these challenges. 2Guilt is the
most destructive of all emotions. It
mourns what has been while play-
ing no part in what may be, now or
in the future.
CHAPTER 3.8. Nikki Giovanni. 3.9. Pope John XXIII. CHAPTER 4.1. Kent
Nerburn. 4.2. Penelope Leach. 4.3. Ajahn Chah. CHAPTER 5.1. Ralph Waldo
Emerson. 5.2. Mary Oliver. 5.3. Minnie Fiske. 5.4. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
5.5. Nancy Ore.
111
3Do everything with a mind
that lets go. If you let go a little,
you will have a little peace. If you
let go a lot, you will have a lot of
peace. If you let go completely, you
will know complete peace and
freedom. Your struggles with the
world will have come to an end.
5 Finish each day and be done
with it. You have done what
you could; some blunders and ab-
surdities have crept in; forget them
as soon as you can. 2You do not
have to walk on your knees for a
hundred miles through the desert,
repenting. 3Accept your own mis-
takes as part of the scheme of
things. 4Tomorrow is a new day;
you shall begin it serenely and with
too high a spirit to be encumbered
with your old nonsense.
5You are enough.
 M y father was the first to introduce me to raw and
stupid hatred. He was really best at it: anything and
everything made him mad—things of the slightest
consequence brought his hatred quickly to the surface and I seemed to be
the main source of his irritation. I did not fear him but his rages made me ill
at heart for he was most of my world then, and it was a world of horror,
but I should not have blamed only my father. When I left that . . . home . . .
I found his counterparts everywhere: my father was only a small part of the
whole, though he was the best at hatred I was ever to meet.
2Because I was and now am the victim of hatred, I’ve dedicated my life to

reverse that hatred and turn it into understanding, tolerance and—why not
say it—into love.
3The last time I saw my father he was dying of cancer. 4I was stunned

by his appearance. I had never seen anything like it before. He was almost,
quite literally, skin and bones. He was in bed and could barely move, could
hardly speak at all, nothing above a whisper—and there he was, all alone in
this dingy, dark apartment. It was like a dungeon. The disease was his death
sentence, and he was there in his prison cell, awaiting execution. That’s
what it seemed like to me. I must say I was shocked, and for one of the few
times in my life, I was speechless.
5Wanting to say things, I miss my father tonight.

(6I would read these words to you, like a ship coming in to harbour.
7The words and you would fall asleep, sheltering just beyond my reach.)

1. Charles Bukowski. 2. Michelle Bachelet. 3. Theresa Bakker. 4. Gail Johnson.

5. Simon F. Ortiz. 6. Medbh McGuckian. 7. Medbh McGuckian.

112
 N O O N E I S

B O R N H A T I N G

1 Hatred is the madness of the

heart, 2 a venom of amaz-
ing bitterness, a black resentment;
something that curses and loathes
4Hatred, which can destroy so
much, never fails to destroy the one
who hates. 5It is self-punishment.
6Everybody comes from the same

life. 3It is like fire, 4a cancer that
spreads one cell at a time. 5It is like
ravening vulture beaks descending
on a place of skulls. 6It is like a
swordfish, working through water
invisibly and then you see it com-
ing with blood along its blade.
source. If you hate another human
being, you’re hating part of your-
self. 7The price of hating other
human beings is loving yourself
less.
4 We lose a lot of time hating
people. 2Hatred is one long

2 No child I have ever known

has come out of its mother’s
womb with a pistol in its hand. 2No
wait.
3I imagine one of the reasons

we cling to our hates so stubbornly

one is born hating other people be-
cause of the color of their skin, or
their background, or their religion.
Someone must learn to hate, and if
they can learn to hate, they can be
taught to love, for love comes
more naturally to the human heart
is because we sense, once hate is
gone, we will be forced to deal with
pain. 4If we hate a person, we hate
something in him or her that is part
of ourselves. What isn’t part of our-
selves doesn’t disturb us.
5Hate can only exist where

than its opposite. there is no understanding. 6Do not

be ignorant. 7Work to understand.

3 Fear of something is at the

root of hate for others—2we
fear something before we hate it.
8Unless the barbarian, mleccha, goy,

infidel, nigger, kaffir, foreigner and

stranger are invited to be our Thou,
3Hatred which denies its true ori- beyond those of our own clan,
gins begins to develop a life of its own. tribe, race, religion or ideology,

CHAPTER 1.1. Lord Byron. 1.2. Paul Valéry. 1.3. George Eliot. 1.4. Dave Pel-
zer. 1.5. Amy Lowell. 1.6. Pablo Neruda. CHAPTER 2.1. Edward James Olmos.
2.2. Nelson Mandela. CHAPTER 3.1. George Washington Carver. 3.2. Cyril
Connolly. 3.3. Arno Gruen. 3.4. James Baldwin. 3.5. Hosea Ballou. 3.6. Elvis
Presley. 3.7. Eldridge Cleaver. CHAPTER 4.1. Marian Anderson. 4.2. René
Maran. 4.3. James Baldwin. 4.4. Hermann Hesse. 4.5. Tennessee Williams.
4.6. Randolph Ouimet. 4.7. Martin E. Hellman. 4.8. Raimundo Panikkar.

113
there is not much hope left for the 3Hatred is too great a burden to
planet. 9Surround hate and force it bear. 4It fatigues. 5It kills the body
to surrender. and it kills the soul. 6It leads to the
extinction of values. 7It is all a lie.

5 Never in this world can ha-

tred be stilled by hatred; it will
be stilled only by love. 2Hatred
8Please do not throw any more

stones. You are moving the land,

paralyzes life; love releases it. Ha-
tred confuses life; love harmonizes
it. Hatred darkens life; love illumin-
ates it.
the holy, whole, open land; you are
moving it to the sea and the sea
doesn’t want it. The sea says, not in
me.

CHAPTER 4.9. Pete Seeger. CHAPTER 5.1. Gautama Buddha. 5.2. Martin Lu-
ther King, Jr. 5.3. Coretta Scott King. 5.4. Jean Rostand. 5.5. James Joyce.
5.6. José Ortega y Gasset. 5.7. Kathleen Norris. 5.8. Yehuda Amichai.

114
 S ometimes I feel certain that I’m going mad. 2Since my
life as a prisoner has begun I have heard 3strange
things, extraordinary things, things that make one
doubt one’s sanity. 4Now I begin to hear voices. 5Thousands of voices from
around the world. 6The words break out, are snapped up. They churn
around and force other words out. 7They crash into each other like waves.
Elated. Surprised. Hesitant. Bitter. They are shouted out loud or sobbed
through tears.
8It is as if I’m tuned in to a simultaneous broadcast of all the voices of

the world, en masse, communicating from all sides.

9Listen. Can you hear it?

10Suddenly the world turns totally silent. Voices stop midsentence.

11The silence resounds. 12Now I can hear myself, 13though I say noth-
ing. 14I possess my own mind.
15And yet I miss them. I miss them all.

16I
can see it in your face. 17You may be right. I may be crazy. 18But
some of the greatest prophets were crazy as bedbugs.

1. Virginia Woolf. 2. Geronimo (Goyathlay). 3. Bram Stoker. 4. Virginia

Woolf. 5. Curtis Strange. 6. Åsne Seierstad. 7. Åsne Seierstad. 8. Richard di
Santo. 9. Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider. 10. Alan Lightman. 11. Karl Rah-
ner. 12. Gülsüm Geçimli. 13. Oliver Goldsmith. 14. John Edward Russell. 15.
Author Unknown. 16. Raffaello Baldini. 17. Billy Joel. 18. Kurt Vonnegut.

115
 P R E J U D I C E S E E S

W H A T I T P L E A S E S

1 I happen to think that the

singular evil of our time is
prejudice. It is from this evil that
all other evils grow and multiply.
2Prejudice and contempt, cloaked
in the pretense of religious or po-
litical conviction, have nearly de-
stroyed us in the past. They plague
us still. They fuel the fanaticism of
terror. They torment the lives of
millions in fractured nations a-
round the world. These obsessions
are all prejudiced. 3The less secure
we are, the more likely we are to have
extreme prejudice.
4If we were to wake up some
morning and find that everyone
was the same race, creed and color,
we would find some other cause
for prejudice by noon. 5Even when
we fancy we have grown wiser, it is
only, it may be, that new prejudices
have replaced old ones.
6Prejudice blinds us. Our eyes

cripple both those who are hated are full of dust.

and, of course, those who hate,
robbing both of what they might
become.
4 Never try to reason the preju-
dice out of people. It was not
reasoned into them, and cannot be

2 Prejudice is the child of igno-

rance. 2It makes everywhere
its home. 3All that it requires is
reasoned out. 2Reasoning against it
is like fighting against a shadow.
3So what is the cure? No other

room. but this, that every person should let

4Prejudice lies when it talks. 5It alone others’ prejudices and exam-
squints when it looks, 6sees what it ine his or her own. 4Recognize them,
pleases, cannot see what is plain. 5shake them off, 6rise above them.
7It is never too late to give them up.

3 Prejudice is the reason of

fools. 2We all decry it, yet we
8Care to know only that a human

being is a human being.

CHAPTER 1.1. Rod Serling. 1.2. Bill Clinton. CHAPTER 2.1. William Hazlitt.
2.2. Thomas Paine. 2.3. Thomas Paine. 2.4. Laure Junot. 2.5. Aubrey de Vere.
CHAPTER 3.1. Voltaire. 3.2. Herbert Spencer. 3.3. Clint Eastwood. 3.4.
George Aiken. 3.5. Christian Nestell Bovee. 3.6. Abraham Coles. CHAPTER
4.1. Sydney Smith. 4.2. Charles Mildmay. 4.3. John Locke. 4.4. Edward R.
Murrow. 4.5. Frederick the Great. 4.6. Washington Irving. 4.7. Henry David
Thoreau. 4.8. Mark Twain.

116
 U N T I L D I F F E R E N C E

M A K E S N O D I F F E R E N C E

1 We have all known the long

loneliness. 2We have witnessed
what intolerance and indifference
can lead to.
3With tears in my eyes, I bow
my head before you. 4I’m not con-
cerned with your liking or disliking
me. All I ask is that you respect me
as a human being. 5Every human
being, of whatever origin, of what-
ever station, deserves respect.
this confrontation depends the
measure of our wisdom and com-
passion. This energy is all that we
find in the rubble of vanished civi-
lizations, and the only hope for
ours.
3 We have got to stop seeing
each other as enemies just be-
cause we have different views. 2We
all have a responsibility to not only
tolerate another person’s point of

2 Intolerance, someone has said,

is violence to the intellect and
hatred is violence to the heart.
2When one assumes an attitude of
intolerance, there is no knowing
where it will take one.
3Tolerance, on the other hand,
view, but also to accept it eagerly
as a challenge to our own under-
standing. 3If we don’t have the ca-
pacity to change ourselves and our
attitudes, then nothing around us
can be changed.

condemns the oppression or per-

secution of others. 4It is mutual
understanding and mutual respect.
5It is nothing less than to allow
others freely to be themselves.
6Human diversity makes tolerance
more than a virtue; it makes it a
requirement for survival.
7We can only face in others
what we can face in ourselves. On
4 My hope is for us to come
together not only embracing
shared values, but acknowledging
our differences in ways that pro-
mote respect and appreciation. 2We
should acknowledge differences,
we should greet differences, until
difference makes no difference any-
more.
3If we are to emerge from the

CHAPTER 1.1. Dorothy Day. 1.2. Lena Gitter. 1.3. Lena Gitter. 1.4. Jackie
Robinson. 1.5. U Thant. CHAPTER 2.1. Mahatma Gandhi. 2.2. Mahatma Gan-
dhi. 2.3. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. 2.4. Dominique Pire. 2.5. Sol Chaneles.
2.6. René Dubos. 2.7. James Baldwin. CHAPTER 3.1. Bill Clinton. 3.2. Arlo
Guthrie. 3.3. Muhammad. CHAPTER 4.1. Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah. 4.2.
Adela Allen. 4.3. Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah.

117
long shadows that can engulf us,
we must talk with each other, come
to understand each other, and re-
new ourselves and our perceptions
of each other. 4We need to listen to
one another. 5We need to work
with one another. 6In overcoming
prejudice, working together is even
more effective than talking to-
gether.
7I know there is strength in the
differences between us—8they are a
mercy. 9I know there is comfort
where we overlap. 10Let us under-
stand the differences; act on the
commonalities.
which points toward differences,
but “What are we?” What is our
nature, our human essence? It is
relatedness, and our primary rela-
tionship is that of love. 2Here toler-
ance becomes a bit more than that
—an intense awareness of the mys-
tery, the miracle of being here at all
together with others. We have the
feeling that at least we can be at the
very least harmless to other crea-
tures, no longer their competitor,
red in claw and fang, not even their
sibling, for brothers and sisters are
rarely free of rivalry, but somehow
self-identical with all these lives in
their infinite diversity.

5 Ask finally not “who are we?”,

CHAPTER 4.4. Chaim Potok. 4.5. Rose Thering. 4.6. Ralph W. Sockman. 4.7.
Ani DiFranco. 4.8. Muhammad. 4.9. Ani DiFranco. 4.10. Andrew Masondo.
CHAPTER 5.1. Huston Smith. 5.2. Frederick Franck.

118
 W hen despair for the world grows in me and I wake
in the night at the least sound, 2I sit alone and
welcome angels. 3Memory pays a call: mother's
face. Her reading poems to me when I was a child. 5My little home, where I
4

spent my childhood years, 6had so many beautiful dreams. 7Sitting on the

steps, talking to invisible people. 8The company of merry friends at the long
table in the garden. (9Peace on my little town, 10my nosy, incredible, deli-
cious neighbors.)
11Scraps of whispers, fragments of conversations. 12My aunt taking me

aside that time and saying, “What I am going to tell you now you will re-
member every day of your life,” but that's all I can remember.
13My children swinging in an old rubber tire from the arm of a great old

tree. One of the boys clambering atop a particularly large stone, 15asking me
14

to recite a poem. 16My littlest girl, eating her porridge herself. Most of it
stays on the spoon. 17Full of sparkle and the dickens. Her beauty was too
bright for this world.
18My wedding day. 19A ring with gold strips that curved across my fin-

ger. The card: “To my one love. From your own.”

20I bury my face in the flowers of memory, inhaling deeply.
21Go with your love to the fields. Lie down in the shade. 22Bury your

face in one another’s hair and breathe in the sweet damp. 23Listen to each
other breathe. 24While you can.

1. Wendell Berry. 2. Pat Schneider. 3. Charles Simic. 4. Alan Lightman. 5.

Daniel Mendelsohn. 6. Daniel Mendelsohn. 7. Gloria Miguel. 8. Charles Simic.
9. William Stafford. 10. William Stafford. 11. Daniel Mendelsohn. 12. Raymond
Carver. 13. Daniel Mendelsohn. 14. Daniel Mendelsohn. 15. Nizar Qabbani.
16. Ilpo Tiihonen. 17. Author Unknown. 18. Klara Freilich. 19. Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie. 20. Elizabeth Spires. 21. Wendell Berry. 22. Alan Lightman.
23. Alan Lightman. 24. Lucy Woodward.

119
 V I O L E N C E
N O T T H E W A Y
1 It is hard to know precisely
when violence starts, but in a
heated atmosphere, it can take an
instant, like a coal bursting into
flame.
2Faith in violence is an old
story. 3We are so accustomed to
maintaining external order by vi-
olence that most of us cannot
conceive of life being possible with-
out it. 4It is shrouded in justifying
myths that lend it moral legitima-
cy—5such as, our pain derives from
“those people” and consequently
“those people” deserve to be pun-
ished.
6Violence is not the way. 7We
challenge the culture of violence
when we ourselves act in the cer-
tainty that violence is no longer
acceptable, that it’s tired and out-
dated no matter how many cling to
it in the stubborn belief that it still
works and that it’s still valid.
2 There is no master race. There
is no greatest nation. There
is no one true religion. There is no
inherently perfect philosophy. There
is no always right political party,
CHAPTER 1.1. Wangari Maathai. 1.2. Satish Kumar. 1.3. Leo Tolstoy. 1.4. Gil
Bailie. 1.5. Marshall Rosenberg. 1.6. R. Buckminster Fuller. 1.7. Gerard Van-
derhaar. CHAPTER 2.1. Neale Donald Walsch. 2.2. Jiddu Krishnamurti. 2.3.
Acarangasutra. 2.4. Åsne Seierstad. 2.5. Oprah Winfrey. 2.6. Seng-ts’an. CHAP-
TER 3. Martin Luther King, Jr.
120
I S
morally supreme economic system,
or one and only way to heaven.
Erase these ideas. For these are
thoughts of division and separa-
tion. Only the truth I give you here
will save you: We are one.
2When you call yourself an
Indian or an American or a Muslim
or a Christian or anything else, you
are being violent. Do you see why
it is violent? Because you are sepa-
rating yourself from the rest of
humankind. When you separate your-
self by belief, by nationality, by
tradition, it breeds violence. 3Suf-
fering is its offspring.
4The distance between “us”
and “them” is total. 5Close it. 6No-
thing is separate.
3 The ultimate weakness of vio-
lence is that it is a descending
spiral, begetting the very thing it
seeks to destroy. Instead of dimin-
ishing evil, it multiplies it. Through
violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor
establish the truth. Through vio-
lence you murder the hater, but
you do not murder hate. In fact,
violence merely increases hate. should be tortured is none else but
you. One who you think should be

4 We can effectively oppose

violence only if we ourselves
do not resort to it. 2To respond to
enslaved is none else but you. One
who you think should be killed is
none else but you.
violence with counter-violence on- 3Every relationship of domina-

ly throws oil on the fire. 3Through tion, of exploitation, of oppression

violence, we may “solve” one prob-
lem, but we sow the seeds for an-
other. 4When violence appears to
do good, the good is only tempo-
rary; the evil it does is permanent.
5It kills what it intends to create.
is by definition violent, whether or
not the violence is expressed by
drastic means. In such a relation-
ship, dominator and dominated alike
are reduced to things—the former
dehumanized by an excess of pow-
er, the latter by a lack of it. And

5 You should not behave to-

wards others in a way that is
disagreeable to yourself. 2One who
things cannot love.
4We must not underestimate

the level of dehumanization to

you think should be hit is none which our species has fallen.
else but you. One who you think

CHAPTER 4.1. Lech Walesa. 4.2. Tenzin Palmo. 4.3. The XIVth Dalai Lama.
4.4. Mahatma Gandhi. 4.5. Pope John Paul II. CHAPTER 5.1. Mahabharata. 5.2.
Acarangasutra. 5.3. Paolo Freire. 5.4. Raimundo Panikkar.

121
 T E R R O R I S M I S

N O T T H E W A Y

1 There has been widespread

slaughter of innocent people.
There have been streams of tears,
innocent tears. There have been
rivers of blood, innocent blood.
Death in the morning, death in the
noontime on the highways and
streets.
2Terrorism is not the way, ter-
rorism is not the way. Never can
we deliver peace by killing people.
Throughout history it has been
used by those who could not pre-
vail, either by persuasion or exam-
ple. 3It is all too common. 4Like
viruses, it is everywhere. 5It has
become the systematic weapon of a
war that knows no borders or sel-
dom has a face. 6It is carried out
purposefully, in a cold-blooded, cal-
culated fashion.
7Terrorism isn’t insanity. 8It

Throughout history, those people does not happen in a vacuum. 9It

who have changed the world have
done so without violence, they have
won people to their cause through
peaceful protest. Their discipline,
their self-sacrifice, their conviction
made people turn towards them, to
follow them. What inspiration can
senseless slaughter provide? How
much blood must be spilled? How
many tears shall we cry? How
many mothers’ and fathers’ hearts
must be maimed? It is time to stop
this vicious cycle of killing. We
must all stand together, for our
common humanity.
grows out of social conditions that
are well known: poverty, social
oppression, dictatorship, and a void
of meaning in the lives of ordinary
people. 10It accompanies any sys-
tem of domination as though it
were its shadow.
3 There are those who lust for
the simple answers of doc-
trine or decree. They are on the left
and right. They are not confined to
a single part of society. They are
the terrorists of the mind. 2They
seek power not from a message of
hope, but one of hate. They spin

2 Terrorism is contempt for hu-

man dignity. 2It is not new.
out tales of conspiracy that appeal
to prejudice, not reason. They scape-

CHAPTER 1.1. Marie Fatayi-Williams. 1.2. Marie Fatayi-Williams. CHAPTER 2.1.

Kjell Magne Bondevik. 2.2. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. 2.3. Kathleen Pequeño.
2.4. Jean Baudrillard. 2.5. Jacques Chirac. 2.6. Benjamin Netanyahu. 2.7. Dee-
pak Chopra. 2.8. David Duke. 2.9. Deepak Chopra. 2.10. Jean Baudrillard.
CHAPTER 3.1. Bartlett Giamatti. 3.2. J. Thomas Schieffer.

122
goat others who practice a differ-
ent religion or hold a different na-
tionality. We must be careful not
to let these extremists define our
world.
3The terrorists—whatever else
they might be—might also be ra-
tional human beings; which is to
say that in their own minds they
have a rational justification for their
7Help me, in saying it, to un-
derstand it.
5 We will never end terrorism
by terrorizing others. 2How
much common sense does it take
to know that you cannot end ter-
rorism by indiscriminately dropping
bombs?
3We must address the root of

actions. Most terrorists are people terrorism to end it for all time.
deeply concerned by what they see 4The root of terrorism is misunder-

as social, political, or religious in- standing, hatred and violence. This

justice and hypocrisy. root cannot be located by the mili-
4But inevitably they fail. 5Ter- tary. Bombs and missiles cannot
rorism ultimately destroys those who reach it, let alone destroy it.
practice it. Slowly but surely, as 5Only with the practice of calm-

they try to extinguish life in others, ing and looking deeply can our
the light within them dies. insight reveal and identify this root.
Only with the practice of deep lis-

4 We must talk to terrorist move-

ments. 2It’s very difficult to
do. (3Who do you talk to? And
what do you actually have to talk
about?) 4But we must talk to one
another. 5It is easy to engage in
dialogue with those who are friend-
ly and those who pose no threat.
The real challenge is to talk to
tening and compassion can it be
transformed and removed. Under-
standing why this violence has been
created, we will then know what to
do and what not to do in order to
decrease it, to create and foster
understanding, reconciliation and
forgiveness.
6In the meantime, there certainly

those who are violent, those who is another appropriate response to

disagree, those who opposed, and terrorism: Determine who the per-
those who intend to harm. petrators are, present some mini-
6This is a hard saying; who can mally credible evidence, and then
listen to it? follow the rule of law.

CHAPTER 3.3. William Blum. 3.4. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. 3.5. Terry Waite.
CHAPTER 4.1. Jonathan Powell. 4.2. Jonathan Powell. 4.3. Jonathan Powell.
4.4. Maureen Stout. 4.5. Satish Kumar. 4.6. The Gospel of John. 4.7. Rainer Maria
Rilke. CHAPTER 5.1. Martin Luther King III. 5.2. Howard Zinn. 5.3. Mu-
hammad Yunus. 5.4. Thich Nhat Hanh. 5.5. Thich Nhat Hanh. 5.6. Noam
Chomsky.

123
6 How to defeat terrorism?
Don’t be terrorized. Don’t let
fear rule your life. Even if you are
scared.
2No one can terrorize us, un-

less we are their accomplices.

CHAPTER 6.1. Salman Rushdie. 6.2. Edward R. Murrow.

124
 A nother day is here and my hands are still covered with
a mantle of stoic ink, words scribbled on a hesitant
paper, wishing to be read now, not later.
2Feel that I have to choose to live, even now, which is hard for some-

one so tired.
3My keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a

peephole in the door.

4You watch yourself.

1. Cecilia Borromeo. 2. Michael Ignatieff. 3. Günther Grass. 4. Wendy Cope.

125
 W A R I S

T E R R O R I S M , M A G N I F I E D

1 War is terrorism, magnified a

hundred times. 2It is the ter-
rorism of the rich. 3Atrocity of
3 War is science of destruction.
2It is delightful to those who

have had no experience of it. 3All

atrocities. 4Tell me why it is we the propaganda, all the screaming
don't lift our voices these days and and lies and hatred, come invaria-
cry over what is happening. bly from the people who are not
fighting. ( 4It would end if the

2 War is what happens when lan-

guage fails. 2On its stage of
death and pain only remains stand-
dead could return. 5The living don’t
believe the dead 6until they live
again.)
ing the negotiating table that could 7I hate war as only one who has

and should have prevented it.
3We go to war because we want
to do something fast. We use vio-
lence because we don't want to
wait. We don't want to work con-
flicts out. We don't want to use
lived it can, only as one who has
seen its brutality, its futility, its stu-
pidity. 8It is a ghost that haunts you
from the moment it exists until the
moment you don’t.
9War! When I but think of this

our mind, our intelligence, our wit.
4Once hostilities begin, reason is
abandoned for animosity, revenge,
and ever-escalating levels of hatred
and cruelty.
5First, one hopes to win; then,
one expects the enemy to lose;
then, one is satisfied that the enemy
too is suffering; in the end, one is
surprised that everyone has lost.
6War is a defeat for humanity.
word, I feel bewildered. 10I have
nothing against the soldiers. 11They,
above all other people, pray for
peace, for they must suffer and bear
the deepest wounds and scars of
war. 12Most are not bad people, not
criminals and not monsters. They
are people being put in horrible
situations, and sometimes they re-
act horribly. 13I feel compassion for
them all.

CHAPTER 1.1. Howard Zinn. 1.2. Peter Ustinov. 1.3. Mark Twain. 1.4. Robert
Bly. CHAPTER 2.1. Margaret Atwood. 2.2. Pope John Paul II. 2.3. Howard
Zinn. 2.4. Tomin Harada. 2.5. Karl Kraus. 2.6. Pope John Paul II. CHAPTER
3.1. John S. C. Abbott. 3.2. Desiderius Erasmus. 3.3. George Orwell. 3.4. Stan-
ley Baldwin. 3.5. Boiko Lambovski. 3.6. Christopher Pike. 3.7. Dwight David
Eisenhower. 3.8. Johan Steele. 3.9. Guy de Maupassant. 3.10. Sami al-Adam.
3.11. Douglas MacArthur. 3.12. Cliff Hicks. 3.13. Anonymous Serbian refugee.

126
 14It has sucked the vigor out of
me. All these wars. 15Never again
will I sanction or support another.
16Victory never leads to peace:
Some eight thousand peace treaties
were signed over the millennia of
human history. None of these has
ever brought lasting peace.
17Conflict is inevitable, but
combat is optional. 18Conflicts can
be solved without resorting to cru-
elty, without denying our human-
ness. 19We must stop the killing
fields.
20I have seen humanity. I know
its face even when I cannot define
it. It is blazoned in my mind. It
measures my character and con-
demns my disregard.
21This I know: 22To save hu-
manity we have to become human.
23Come, let us reason together.
4 Naturally the common people
don’t want war. That is un-
derstood. But after all, it is the
leaders of a country who determine
policy, and it is always a simple
matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fas-
cist dictatorship, or a parliament,
or a communist dictatorship. Voice
or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the
CHAPTER 3.14. Åsne Seierstad. 3.15. Harry Emerson Fosdick. 3.16. Raimundo
Panikkar. 3.17. Max Lucado. 3.18. James Earl Jones. 3.19. Dith Pran. 3.20.
Joan Chittister. 3.21. Plato. 3.22. Raimundo Panikkar. 3.23. The Book of Isaiah.
CHAPTER 4.1. Hermann Göring. 4.2. Starhawk. 4.3. Daniel Mendelsohn. 4.4.
Starhawk. 4.5. Adrienne Rich.
127
leaders. That is easy. All you have
to do is to tell them they are being
attacked, and denounce the peace-
makers for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger. It
works the same in any country.
2You can look at war as a
massing of arms and matériel and
troops, but you can also see it as
something else—as a delicate web
of interwoven choices made by
human beings, made out of a cer-
tain consciousness. The decision to
order an attack, the choice to obey
or disobey an order, to fire or not
to fire a weapon. (3It’s important to
try to think about this, about the
moment of the shooting, where the
link between the hand that squeez-
es the trigger and the bullets, and
the targets, and the resulting deaths,
seems so clear, so direct. There is
always a single person who actually
does it.)
4Armies and, indeed, any cul-
ture that supports them must
convince the people that all the
decisions are made already, and
they have no choice. But that is
never true.
5War comes as absolute failure
of imagination, scientific and po-
litical. That a war can be repre-
sented as helping a people to “feel
good” about themselves, their coun- war. If you love peace, then hate
try, is a measure of that failure. injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed
—but hate these things in yourself,

5 Who does not understand

violence? Who has not expe-
rienced suffering and wanted to
not in another. 7We must fight till
we have conquered them in ourselves,
8with insight and repentance, 9for-

inflict it twice over in return? Who giveness and love.

has not felt the heat and thunder
of anger rise up in him or her?
Who has not known the total re-
lease of fury bursting forth?
2We humans know violence
well. It is part of each of us.
3We used to wonder where
war lived, what it was that made it
6 Ours is a world of nuclear
giants and ethical infants. 2Our
scientific power has outrun our
spiritual power. We have guided
missiles and misguided men and
women.
3We think, because we have

so vile. And now we realize that we scientific power, we have wisdom.

know where it lives, that it is inside 4But science is not wisdom. 5We

ourselves. 4There never was a war think, because we have military pow-
that was not inward. 5If we look er, we have wisdom. 6But might is
deeply into the weapons, we see not wisdom.
our own minds—our prejudices, 7What is wisdom? 8It is that

fears, and ignorance. Even if we which makes for peace.

transported all the bombs to the 9For years now, we have been

moon, the roots of war and the
reasons for bombs would still be
here, in our hearts and minds, and
sooner or later we would make
new bombs.
6Instead of hating the people
you think are warmakers, hate the
appetites and the disorder in your
own soul, which are the causes of
talking about war and peace. But
now, no longer can we just talk
about it. It is no longer a choice
between violence and nonviolence
in this world; it’s nonviolence or
nonexistence. 10Here then, is the
problem, stark and dreadful and
inescapable: Shall we put an end to
the human race; or shall human-

CHAPTER 5.1. Eboo Patel. 5.2. Eboo Patel. 5.3. Albert Camus. 5.4. Marianne
Moore. 5.5. Thich Nhat Hanh. 5.6. Thomas Merton. 5.7. Marianne Moore.
5.8. Hans-Josef Klauck. 5.9. Me’shell Ndegéocello. CHAPTER 6.1. Omar Brad-
ley. 6.2. Martin Luther King, Jr. 6.3. Stephen Vincent Benét. 6.4. Patrick Ro-
manell. 6.5. Stephen Vincent Benét. 6.6. Bruce Weber. 6.7. Will Durant. 6.8.
Gail Ramshaw. 6.9. Martin Luther King, Jr. 6.10. Bertrand Russell, Albert Ein-
stein.

128
kind renounce war? the discoveries that will never be
made, the arts that will never be

7 War is out of date, obsolete.

(2Either war is obsolete or
humans are.) 3You can no more win
created, the problems that will nev-
er be solved.
12Every gun that is made, every

a war than you can win an earth-
quake. 4It settles nothing; to win
one is as disastrous as to lose one.
5It does not decide who is right, it
decides who is left.
6War is not an act of “God.”
7It is not an accident. It is the logi-
cal outcome of a certain way of
life. 8If we want to attack war, we
have to attack that way of life.
9Let me put it another way:
10We have to create a new way of
warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are
not clothed. This world in arms is
not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists, the hopes
of its children. This is not a way of
life at all in any true sense. 13We
must create a way of life.
14War is an invention of the

life. human mind. The human mind can

11When we think about great
devastations, about what gets lost
as a result of the decimation of
entire populations of people, we
tend, naturally, to think first of
the people themselves, the families
that will cease existing, the children
that will never be born; and then of
invent peace.
8 It is not enough to say we
must not wage war. It is nec-
essary to love peace and sacrifice
for it. 2In the hearts of people to-
day there is a deep longing for it.
3More and more individuals world-

the homely things with which most
of us are familiar, the houses and
mementoes and photographs that,
because those people no longer
exist, will stop having any mean-
ing at all. But there is this, too: the
thoughts that will never be thought,
wide are realizing that war does not
solve conflict, nor resolve long-
standing cycles of violence. 4No
war today can be called just, given
the inevitable level of casualties
and atrocities. 5As more of those
who have this understanding com-

CHAPTER 7.1. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 7.2. R. Buckminster Fuller. 7.3. Jeanette
Rankin. 7.4. Agatha Christie. 7.5. Bertrand Russell. 7.6. Frederic Moore Vin-
son. 7.7. A. J. Muste. 7.8. A. J. Muste. 7.9. Charlie Louvin. 7.10. Anne Marie
Elderkin Habibi. 7.11. Daniel Mendelsohn. 7.12. Dwight David Eisenhower.
7.13. Saturday Review. 7.14. Norman Cousins. CHAPTER 8.1. Martin Luther
King, Jr. 8.2. Albert Schweitzer. 8.3. Scilla Elworthy. 8.4. Walter Wink. 8.5.
Scilla Elworthy.

129
municate it to policy-makers and
more particularly, start implement-
ing it in their own lives and locali-
ties, change will happen.
6We have the ability to achieve,
nic, national and local diversities
that enrich our lives. 7Somehow,
and in some way, we have got to
do this.

if we muster the necessary good-

will, a common global society
blessed with a shared culture of
9 The first soldier has just been
killed in the new war.
2Someday they’ll give a war

peace that is nourished by the eth- and nobody will come.

CHAPTER 8.6. Mahnaz Afkhami. 8.7. Martin Luther King, Jr. CHAPTER 9.1.
Daniel Mendolsohn. 9.2. Carl Sandburg.

130
 N o matter what situation we are in, we can find some
level of connection with anybody. We can still look
them in the eyes. We can still recognize their hu-
manity. We all bleed the same.
2True, we are often too weak to stop injustices; but the least we can do

is protest against them. True, we are too poor to eliminate hunger; but in
feeding one child, we protest against hunger. True, we are too timid and
powerless to take on all the guards of all the political prisons in the world;
but in offering our solidarity to one prisoner, we denounce all the tormen-
tors. True, we are powerless against death; but as long as we help one man,
one woman, one child live one hour longer in safety and dignity, we affirm
a human’s right to live.
3Where is your humanity?

1. Benjamin Thompson. 2. Elie Wiesel. 3. Åsne Seierstad.

131
 I T I S P O S S I B L E

T O L I V E I N P E A C E

1 The single clenched fist lifted

and ready, or the open hand
held out and waiting. Choose: For
we meet by one or the other.
2Like the grasses showing ten-
der faces to each other, thus
should we do. 3It is possible to live
in peace.
3 What is peace? 2It is respect
for the rights of others. 3It is
contributing the best that we have,
and all that we are, toward creating
a world that supports everyone. It
is also securing the space for others
to contribute the best that they
have and all that they are. 4It is the
capacity to transcend past hurts—

2 Seek peace, and pursue it. 2The

pursuit of peace, with its trials
and errors, its successes and set-
backs, must never be relaxed and
never abandoned.
3Peace is the only battle worth
waging. 4But the waging of peace,
by our own cowardice, is partial.
5Certainly the trouble is not that
we do not want peace. We have
seen enough war, we are sick of it
to break cycles of violence and
forge new pathways that say, “I
would like to make sure we live as
a community where there is justice,
security, and development for all
members.” At the end of the day, it
is an investment; it is something
you create by investing in a way of
life and monitoring where your re-
sources go.
5A peace that comes from fear

unto death. We want the peace; but
most of us do not want to pay the
price of peace. We still dream of a
peace that has no cost attached.
6Why is it so easy for us to be
willing to pick up arms and risk our
and not from the heart is the op-
posite of peace. 6Peace is not the
product of terror or fear. It is the
generous, tranquil contribution of
all to the good of all.
7Peace is dynamism. Peace is

lives, and so difficult to put down generosity. It is right and it is duty.

those same weapons and still risk 8It is the marriage of the people

our lives—in the cause of life? and the planet, with all attendant
7Old habits die hard. vows.

CHAPTER 1.1. Carl Sandburg. 1.2. Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa). 1.3. Mahatma
Gandhi. CHAPTER 2.1. The Book of Psalms. 2.2. Dag Hammarskjöld. 2.3. Albert
Camus. 2.4. Daniel Berrigan. 2.5. Daniel Berrigan. 2.6. Ramzi Kysia. 2.7. Bill
Clinton. CHAPTER 3.1. Arun Gandhi. 3.2. Benito Juarez. 3.3. Hafsat Abiola.
3.4. Noreleen Heyzer. 3.5. Gersonides. 3.6. Óscar Romero. 3.7. Óscar Ro-
mero. 3.8. Author Unknown.

132
4 The first peace, which is the
most important, is that which
comes within the souls of people
we now prepare for war, 6with dis-
cipline, intelligence and strength of
character.
when they realize their oneness
with the universe and all its pow-
ers. This is the real peace, and the
others are but reflections of this.
6 Where love rules, there is no
will to power, and where power
predominates, love is lacking. The
2This peace is beyond victory or one is the shadow of the other.
defeat. 3The second peace is that 2We look forward to the time when

which is made between two indi-
viduals, and the third is that which
is made between two nations. But
there can never be peace between
nations until there is known that
true peace, which is within the souls
of people.
the power of love will replace the
love of power. 3When the power of
love overcomes the love of power,
the world will know peace. 4We
shall hear angels. We shall see the
sky sparkling with diamonds.
5But peace is not merely a dis-

tant goal that we seek. It is a means

5 Peace may sound simple—

one beautiful word—but it
requires everything we have, every
quality, every strength, every dream,
every high ideal. 2The world will
never have lasting peace so long as
we reserve for war the finest human
qualities.
3We can no longer afford to
by which we arrive at that goal. We
must pursue peaceful ends through
peaceful means. (6There is no way
to peace, peace is the way.) 7Peace
is a daily, a weekly, a monthly proc-
ess, gradually changing opinions,
slowly eroding old barriers, quietly
building new structures.
8While we all hope for peace, it

confuse peaceability with passivity. shouldn’t be peace at any cost but

Authentic peace is no more passive
than war. 4It must be waged with a
warrior’s resolve. 5We must work
for it as ardently, seriously, con-
tinuously, carefully, and bravely as
peace based on principle, on jus-
tice. 9Justice and peace can only
thrive together, never apart. 10They
are two sides of the same coin.
11Peace, in the sense of absence of

CHAPTER 4.1. Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa). 4.2. Bhagavad Gita. 4.3. Black Elk (He-
haka Sapa). CHAPTER 5.1. Yehudi Menuhin. 5.2. John Foster Dulles. 5.3.
Wendell Berry. 5.4. Bill Clinton. 5.5. Wendell Berry. 5.6. Wendell Berry.
CHAPTER 6.1. Carl Jung. 6.2. William Gladstone. 6.3. Jimi Hendrix. 6.4. An-
ton Chekhov. 6.5. Martin Luther King, Jr. 6.6. A. J. Muste. 6.7. John Fitz-
gerald Kennedy. 6.8. Corazon Aquino. 6.9. Oscar Arias Sánchez. 6.10. Dwight
David Eisenhower. 6.11. The XIVth Dalai Lama.

133
war, is of little value to someone
who is dying of hunger or cold.
12To have meaning for many who
have only known suffering, it must
be translated into bread or rice,
shelter, health and education, as
well as freedom and human dig-
nity.
13We need at last to form a
ral scarcity, but of a set of priorities
imposed upon the rest of the world
by the rich. 9As long as there is
plenty, poverty is evil. 10It is a de-
nial of human rights. 11It is the worst
form of violence. 12It is the parent
of revolution, 13a powderkeg that
could be ignited by our indifference.

circle that includes us all, in which

all of us are seen as equal. 14Peace
requires everyone to be in the cir-
cle. 15The earth is the mother of all
people, and all people should have
equal rights upon it.
8 Poverty is unnecessary, 2for we
hold in our mortal hands the
power to abolish all its forms. 3But
we accept the fact that we will al-
ways have poor people around us.
So we have poor people around us.
If we believed that poverty is unac-

7 There is something about pov-

erty that smells like death. 2It
is death in another form.
3Poverty is a threat to peace.
4The frustrations, hostility and an-
ger generated by abject poverty
cannot sustain peace. 5Let us not
be self-righteous, 6declaring that
those born in poverty are poor be-
cause of their own choosing. 7Let
ceptable to us, we would create
appropriate institutions and poli-
cies to create a poverty-free world.
4I have come to believe, deeply and
firmly, that we can create a pov-
erty-free world if we want to. I have
come to this conclusion not as a
product of a pious dream, but as a
concrete result of experience.
5For the first time in history, in

us recognize that extreme poverty this age of unprecedented wealth

anywhere is a threat to human se-
curity everywhere.
8The poverty now is unlike that
of any other age. It is not, as pov-
erty was before, the result of natu-
and technical prowess, we have the
power to save humanity from this
shameful scourge. 6We have to,
first of all, become aware of it. We
have to take responsibility for it.

CHAPTER 6.12. Ralph Johnson Bunche. 6.13. Barbara Deming. 6.14. Isabel
Allende. 6.15. Joseph (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt). CHAPTER 7.1. Zora Neale
Hurston. 7.2. Latin saying. 7.3. Muhammad Yunus. 7.4. Muhammad Yunus.
7.5. Ramacharaka. 7.6. William Linder. 7.7. Kofi Annan. 7.8. John Berger.
7.9. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 7.10. Mary Robinson. 7.11. Mahatma Gandhi. 7.12.
Aristotle. 7.13. Bill Clinton. CHAPTER 8.1. Muhammad Yunus. 8.2. John Fitz-
gerald Kennedy. 8.3. Muhammad Yunus. 8.4. Muhammad Yunus. 8.5. Kofi
Annan. 8.6. Martin Sheen.

134
And then we have to do something
about it for our own freedom, for
our own salvation, for our own
humanity.
7Do we have the will to make
poverty history? 8To make lasting
peace?
in this world, and if we are to carry
on a real war against war, we shall
have to begin with the children.
6Our schoolbooks glorify war and
conceal its horrors. They indoctri-
nate children with hatred.
7Many children belong to gangs

formed by different social groups.

9 Establishing lasting peace is

the work of education. 2The
culture of peace is something which
They take guns into the schools.
8The students are killing each other.
9Teachers are being killed. 10It’s war.

is learned, just as violence is learned 11We are responsible for giving

and war culture is learned. 3A guns to the children. We even train

peace culture thrives on and is them in how to use them. 12All
nourished by visions of how things over the world we are doing this.
might be, in a world where sharing 13If only we could celebrate

and caring are part of the accepted
lifeways for everyone.
4For the concept of a war-free
world to become a reality, a proc-
ess of education would be required
aimed at making people think a-
bout security in global terms. Our
traditional upbringing has taught us
to think of security in terms of our
peace as our various ancestors cele-
brated war; if only we could glorify
peace as those before us, thirsting
for adventure, glorified war; if only
our sages and scholars together
could resolve to infuse peace with
the same energy and inspiration
that others have put into war.
14We who work for peace must

nation. In the new situation, where
a conflict anywhere may escalate
and endanger all humanity, it is in
everybody’s interest to prevent any
conflict in any part of the world
from escalating into a military con-
frontation.
5If we are to teach real peace
not falter. 15We must not lose faith
in humanity. (Humanity is an ocean;
if a few drops of the ocean are
dirty, the ocean does not become
dirty.) 16We must continue to pray
for peace and to act for peace in
whatever way we can, we must
continue to speak for peace and to

CHAPTER 8.7. Bono. 8.8. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin. CHAPTER 9.1. Maria Mon-
tessori. 9.2. Elise Boulding. 9.3. Elise Boulding. 9.4. Joseph Rotblat. 9.5. Ma-
hatma Gandhi. 9.6. Albert Einstein. 9.7. Ligia Inez Alzate. 9.8. Ligia Inez
Alzate. 9.9. Ligia Inez Alzate. 9.10. Mary Nelson. 9.11. Ligia Inez Alzate. 9.12.
David Suzuki. 9.13. Elie Wiesel. 9.14. Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman).
9.15. Mahatma Gandhi. 9.16. Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman).

135
live the way of peace; to know that
peace is possible. 17Peace is our gift
to each other.
18We cannot stop all war for all
time, but we can stop some wars.
We cannot save all women and all
children, but we can save many of
20Speak, move, act in peace.
21Do not injure any being, either
strong or weak. 22Do not retaliate
against violence with violence. 23Beat
your sword into a ploughshare, and
your spear into a pruning hook.
24Give peace a chance. 25Let it come

them. We can’t do everything, but like wildflowers, suddenly, because

we must do what we can. 19There the field must have it: wildpeace.
won’t be peace if we don’t try.

CHAPTER 9.17. Elie Wiesel. 9.18. Bill Clinton. 9.19. Lenny Kravitz. 9.20.
François Fénelon. 9.21. Sutta Nipata. 9.22. Jesus. 9.23. The Book of Isaiah. 9.24.
John Lennon. 9.25. Yehuda Amichai.

136
 W
ords! 2They are alive; cut them and they bleed. 3But
words—words are not enough! 4They will not give
me back my children. 5They can’t give me back my
health. 6They can’t give me back my life.
7It is more and more difficult to write. The irretrievable clearness of

words is lost.
8Words are useless, stubborn, twisted like screws that won’t go in

straight. And they tire me. But they are all I have. 9They lie gutted all around
me.

10Now a great silence overcomes me, and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language. 11I can think of nothing, my head is empty, so empty. 12I
just can’t do it; I just can’t do it.
(13I hate quotations.)
14Ah, memory, memory . . . terrible, to be losing the words.
15I can’t explain it to you.

16Whom to talk to. There’s no-one.

17Nothing with me . . . Nothing with me . . . except words. (18As though
the book will answer me.) 19My hand is colder because of its distance from
you.

1. Seng-ts’an. 2. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 3. Klaus Kinski. 4. Joseph (Hin-mah-

too-yah-lat-kekt). 5. Sheila Holt-Orsted. 6. Terry Amanchick. 7. Balsa Brkovic.
8. Roger Wolfe. 9. Roger Wolfe. 10. Jalaluddin Rumi. 11. Åsne Seierstad. 12.
Bill Clinton. 13. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 14. Edward Field. 15. Earl Monroe.
16. Nadine Gordimer. 17. Nizar Qabbani. 18. Åsne Seierstad. 19. Dana Po-
dracká.

137
 20There is no denying my handwriting is deteriorating. That is part of
my condition. That is part of what is happening to me. There are days when
I squint at what I have just written, barely able to decipher it myself.
21I am of no use to anyone.

22But I can’t stop: without letters tumbling down to my fingertips, I’d

crack up in nothing flat.
23Noah sails the ship on.

20. J. M. Coetzee. 21. Abdullah Konushevci. 22. Enis Batur. 23. Sylva
Fischerová.

138
 T H E W E A P O N O F

N O N V I O L E N C E

1 Listen. 2Peace is not the ab-

sence of conflict, but the pres-
ence of creative alternatives for
lence is not the final objective. The
final objective is humanity. It is
life.
responding to conflict—alternatives
to passive or aggressive responses,
alternatives to violence. 3If we re-
sist violence with violence, we
2 At the center of nonviolence
stands the principle of love.
2That’s all nonviolence is—organ-

simply mirror its evil. We become
what we resist. 4That which we re-
sist stays.
5Let us not become the evil
that we deplore. 6Let us resist the
downward spiral. 7Let us turn away
evil with that which is better.
8I am going to give you such a
weapon that the police and the
ized love—3active love that seeks
justice and peace for the whole
human race, beginning with the
poor and oppressed. 4Love is not
emotional bash; it is not empty
sentimentalism. It is the active out-
pouring of one’s whole being into
the being of another.
5Reverence for life affords me

army will not be able to stand my fundamental principle of mo-

against it. That weapon is patience
and righteousness. 9It is nonvio-
lence. 10It will achieve more than
force.
11The point of nonviolence is
to build a floor, a strong new floor,
beneath which we can no longer
sink. A platform which stands a
few feet above napalm, torture,
exploitation, poison gas, A and H
bombs, the works. Give humanity a
decent place to stand. 12Nonvio-
rality, namely that good consists in
maintaining, assisting and enhanc-
ing life. 6It is totally free from sen-
timentality. It is simply the avoid-
ance of inflicting unnecessary suf-
fering on any living being and the
alleviation of suffering with all the
means at our disposal. Reverence
for the mystery of life is the basis
of all truly human relationships,
not only with our fellow humans,
but also with all that lives.

CHAPTER 1.1. Nachoem M. Wijnberg. 1.2. Dorothy Thompson. 1.3. Walter

Wink. 1.4. David R. Hawkins. 1.5. Barbara Lee. 1.6. Jeanette Ndhlovu. 1.7.
The Qu’ran. 1.8. Abdul Ghaffar Khan. 1.9. Mahatma Gandhi. 1.10. Edmund
Burke. 1.11. Joan Baez. 1.12. Adolfo Peréz Esquivel. CHAPTER 2.1. Martin
Luther King, Jr. 2.2. Joan Baez. 2.3. John Dear. 2.4. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2.5. Albert Schweitzer. 2.6. Frederick Franck.

139
 7If we separate love from non-
violence we turn nonviolence into
an ideology, a gimmick. 8Nonvio-
lence is not a dogma; it is a proc-
ess.
tion. Because it disrupts our lives
and requires risks by us on behalf
of others and the truth of peace, it
hurts. It is costly. 4It is really tough.
5In some cases nonviolence

requires more militancy than vio-

3 Nonviolence recognizes every

human being as an equal sis-
ter and brother. 2Even as the fin-
gers of the two hands are equal,
3though not alike, 4so are human
beings equal to one another. 5We
are children of the same soil. 6We
are all featherless, two-legged,
linguistically conscious creatures
born between urine and feces. We
emerged among the juices and the
fluids and the stink and the stench
as little babies hollering out for help
and protection, hoping for a little
love and care and meaning. 7No
one has any right, nor any prefer-
ence, to claim over another. 8An
equal degree of attention is due to
the needs of all.
lence. 6It is a means of combat, as
is war. It involves the matching of
forces and the waging of “battle,”
requires wise strategy and tactics
and demands of its “soldiers”
courage, discipline and sacrifice.
This view of nonviolent action as a
technique of active combat is dia-
metrically opposed to the popular
assumption that, at its strongest,
nonviolent action relies on rational
persuasion of the opponent, and,
more commonly, that it consists
simply of passive submission. Non-
violent action is just what it says:
action which is nonviolent. 7It is
not inaction. 8It is hard work. 9The
technique consists, not simply of
words, but of active protest, non-
cooperation, and intervention. 10The

4 Nonviolence is willing to under-

go suffering rather than inflict
it. It renounces violence both in
power behind it is not weapons,
but the support of the people.

method and in attitude. 2It excludes

retaliation and flight. 3It demands
sacrifice, commitment, creativity,
struggle, and persistent reconcilia-
5 Creative nonviolence can nev-
er be a genuinely moral re-
sponse unless we are capable of
first entertaining the possibility of

CHAPTER 2.7. Jean Goss. 2.8. Thich Nhat Hanh. CHAPTER 3.1. John Dear.
3.2. Muhammad. 3.3. Afghan saying. 3.4. Muhammad. 3.5. Wangari Maathai.
3.6. Cornel West. 3.7. Muhammad. 3.8. Simone Weil. CHAPTER 4.1. Wally
Nelson. 4.2. Wally Nelson. 4.3. John Dear. 4.4. César Chávez. 4.5. César
Chávez. 4.6. Gene Sharp. 4.7. César Chávez. 4.8. César Chávez. 4.9. Gene
Sharp. 4.10. Arun Gandhi. CHAPTER 5.1. Walter Wink.

140
violence and consciously saying
“No.” Otherwise our nonviolence
may actually be a mask for coward-
ice.
2I do believe that when there is
only a choice between cowardice
and violence, I would advise vio-
lence. 3Violence is not an absolute
anonymity and exists in his or her
own right. To engage someone in
dialogue is to recognize him or her,
have faith in him or her. 2Non-
violence presupposes a level of
humanness—however low it may
be, in every human being.
3The nonviolent approach does

evil to be avoided at all costs. 4I not immediately change the heart

abhor war. I dislike any resort to
violence. But I do not exclude the
possibility that in some circum-
stances I might find myself in-
volved in activities that violate my
principles. I do not believe in abso-
lutes. 5In a situation of extreme
oppression, it is far better that we
act violently than let our fear para-
lyze us into no act at all. 6We
of the opponent. It first does some-
thing to the hearts and souls of
those committed to it. It gives
them new self-respect; it calls up
resources of strength and courage
that they did not know they had.
Finally it reaches the opponent and
so stirs his or her conscience that
reconciliation becomes a reality.
4Reconciliation is necessary, and

should not strike a neutral pose but
side with the oppressed.
7So I allow the possibility that
war, under very specific circum-
stances not easily or often met,
may be moral and necessary. 8But
let me not be misunderstood. 9I am
anti-aggression and immoral and
unnecessary war. 10Nonviolence is
infinitely superior to violence.
it must be engaged in at all stages
of the struggle. The human quality
of the opponent must be continu-
ally affirmed. 5Courtesy towards
opponents and eagerness to under-
stand their viewpoint is basic.
7 Nonviolent direct action seeks
to create such a crisis and
establish such creative tension that
an opponent that has constantly re-

6 Generally speaking, the first

nonviolent act is dialogue. The
other side, the adversary, is recog-
nized as a person, is taken out of
fused to negotiate is forced to con-
front the issue. It seeks so to
dramatize the issue that it can no
longer be ignored. I am not afraid

CHAPTER 5.2. Mahatma Gandhi. 5.3. Walter Wink. 5.4. Joseph Rotblat. 5.5.
Walter Wink. 5.6. John Swomley. 5.7. Camillo Bica. 5.8. Mahatma Gandhi.
5.9. Camillo Bica. 5.10. Mahatma Gandhi. CHAPTER 6.1. Hildegard Goos-
Mayr. 6.2. Narayan Desai. 6.3. Martin Luther King, Jr. 6.4. Walter Wink. 6.5.
Mahatma Gandhi. CHAPTER 7.1. Martin Luther King, Jr.

141
of the word tension. There is a
type of constructive tension that is
necessary for growth.
2In nonviolence we must never
adopt a strategy that we would not
want our opponents to use against
us. 3That action alone is just that
does not harm either party.
4Follow effective action with
quiet reflection. From the quiet
reflection will come even more
effective action.
8 War is “natural,” they tell us.
Violence is “natural,” they ar-
gue. What they don’t say is that
just because something is “natural”
does not make it human. And then
the slippage starts, the desecration
of life.
2It is in the interest of the Pow-
ers to make people believe that
nonviolence doesn’t work. To that
CHAPTER 7.2. Walter Wink. 7.3. Mahatma Gandhi. 7.4. Peter F. Drucker.
CHAPTER 8.1. Joan Chittister. 8.2. Walter Wink. 8.3. Desmond Tutu. 8.4.
Madge Michaels-Cyrus. 8.5. Walter Wink. CHAPTER 9. Martin Luther King, Jr.
142
end they create a double standard.
If a single case can be shown
where nonviolence doesn’t work,
nonviolence as a whole can then
be discredited. No such rigorous
standard is applied to violence,
however, which regularly fails to
achieve its goals.
3We must not allow the Powers
to exploit our differences and stoke
the fires of tribal animosity and
warfare for political advantage.
4Nonviolence doesn’t always work
—but violence rarely does. 5And the
casualties and destruction in nonvio-
lence are far less severe.
9 The aftermath of nonviolence
is the creation of the beloved
community, so that when the battle
is over, a new relationship comes
into being between the oppressed
and the oppressor.
 S pare me your indifference.
2I tire so of how people say, “Let things take their

course. Tomorrow is another day.” I do not need my

freedom when I’m dead.
3Apathy is a disease and some days I long for it. 4But it is better to

scream.

1. Libbie Fudim. 2. Langston Hughes. 3. Zoe Trope. 4. Nadezhda Mandel-

stam.

143
 T H E D I S E A S E O F

A P A T H Y A N D I N D I F F E R E N C E

1 All over the world women

and men are treated inhu-
manely: They are robbed of their
freedom and their opportunities;
their human rights are trampled
under foot; their human dignity is
disregarded.
2We stand, as it were, on the
shore, and see multitudes of our
fellow beings struggling in the wa-
ter, stretching forth their arms,
sinking, drowning. 3It’s easier to be
3 The opposite of love is not
hate, it’s indifference—2indif-
ference not from a lack of knowl-
edge, but from carelessness, from
absorption in other pursuits, from
a contempt bred of self-satisfac-
tion. 3Some people prefer not to
notice problematic situations be-
cause they have lots of problems
themselves. 4Others don’t think their
voices will be heard by anybody.
5But indifference is the essence of

ignorant and say, “I don’t know inhumanity. 6It is the epitome of

about the problem.” But once you evil, 7the invisible giant of the
know, once you’ve seen it in their world.
eyes, then you have a responsibility 8We were taught under the old

to do something. ethic that our business on this earth

was to look out for ourselves. That

2 We can drive back the dark-

ness a little. We can make
green places within ourselves and
among ourselves. 2The salvation of
humankind lies only in making ev-
erything the concern of all.
3There is clearly much left to
be done, and whatever else we are
going to do, we had better get on
with it.
was the ethic of the jungle; the
ethic of the wild beast. Take care
of yourself, no matter what may
become of anyone else. 9Then, thou-
sands of years ago the question was
asked, “Am I my brother’s keep-
er?” That question has never yet
been answered in a way that is sat-
isfactory to civilized society.
10How will you answer?

CHAPTER 1.1. Hans Küng. 1.2. Felix Adler. 1.3. Craig Kielburger. CHAPTER
2.1. Frederick Buechner. 2.2. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 2.3. Rosalynn Carter.
CHAPTER 3.1. Elie Wiesel. 3.2. William Osler. 3.3. Roman Shleinov. 3.4.
Roman Shleinov. 3.5. George Bernard Shaw. 3.6. Elie Wiesel. 3.7. Ouida. 3.8.
Eugene V. Debs. 3.9. Eugene V. Debs. 3.10. Michael A. Singer.

144
4 The greatest danger to our
future is apathy, 2often doing
more damage than outright dislike.
world’s great anguish and its wrong,
and dare not speak.

3The world is a dangerous place,

not because of those who do evil,

but because of those who look on
5 So what do we do? Anything.
Something. So long as we just
don’t sit there.
and do nothing. 4To do nothing is 2There are many persons ready

in everyone’s power. to do what is right because in their

5Those who are indifferent do
not see others. They feel nothing
for others and are unconcerned
with what might happen to them.
They are surrounded by a great
emptiness. Filled by it, in fact.
They are devoid of all hope as well
as imagination. In other words, de-
void of any future.
6Apathy is a sort of living ob-
livion: 7one dies before one actu-
ally dies. 8Mourn the living dead.
9Mourn the apathetic throng, the
hearts they know it is right. But,
they hesitate, waiting for someone else
to make the first move—and that
person, in turn, waits for you. The
minute a person whose word means
a great deal dares to take the open-
hearted and courageous way, many
others follow.
3It is like a road in the country.
There never was a road, but when
many people walk on it, the road
comes into existence.
4Let’s walk together.

cowed and the meek who see the

CHAPTER 4.1. Jane Goodall. 4.2. J. K. Rowling. 4.3. Albert Einstein. 4.4.
Samuel Johnson. 4.5. Elie Wiesel. 4.6. Horace Greeley. 4.7. Elie Wiesel. 4.8.
Florence Orabueze. 4.9. Ralph Caplin. CHAPTER 5.1. Lee Iacocca. 5.2. Marian
Anderson. 5.3. Lin Yutang. 5.4. Ardath Rodale.

145
 T H E W A Y O F

G I V I N G

1 Have you had a kindness

shown? Pass it on. 2It is more
blessed to give than to receive.
sessions. It is when we give of our-
selves that we truly give.
3When we give of ourselves, some-

thing new comes into being. Two

2 When you see someone prac-

ticing the Way of giving, aid
him or her joyously.
2Giving liberates the soul.
3It is rare indeed that people
give. Most people guard and keep;
they suppose that it is they them-
selves and what they identify with
themselves that they are guarding
and keeping, whereas what they are
actually guarding and keeping is
their system of reality and what
they assume themselves to be.
people, who moments before were
trapped in separate worlds of pri-
vate cares, suddenly meet each
other over a simple act of sharing;
warmth, even joy, is created. The
world expands, a bit of goodness is
brought forth, and a small miracle
occurs. We must never underesti-
mate this miracle.
5 To give and then not feel that
you have given is the very best
of all ways of giving. 2Consider the
flame of a single lamp. Though a

3 All we are unable to give pos-

sesses us.
2Only that which cannot be
lost in a shipwreck is ours.
hundred thousand people come
and light their own lamps from it
so that they can cook their food
and ward off the darkness, the first
lamp remains the same as before.

4 Our most valuable posses-

sions are those which can be
shared without lessening—those
3Give not with the thought to

gain. 4Give simply because it is

which, when shared, multiply. Our
least valuable possessions, on the
other hand, are those which, when
divided, are diminished. 2We give
but little when we give of our pos-
right to give, without thought of
return, at a proper time, in proper
circumstances. 5At the deepest lev-
el, there is no giver, no gift, and no
recipient, only the universe rear-
ranging itself.

CHAPTER 1.1. Henry Burton. 1.2. The Book of Acts. CHAPTER 2.1. Gautama
Buddha. 2.2. Maya Angelou. 2.3. James Baldwin. CHAPTER 3.1. André Gide.
3.2. Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali. CHAPTER 4.1. William H. Danforth.
4.2. Kahlil Gibran. 4.3. Kent Nerburn. CHAPTER 5.1. Max Beerbohm. 5.2.
Gautama Buddha. 5.3. The Qur’an. 5.4. Bhagavad Gita. 5.5. Jon Kabat-Zinn.

146
 S
say is heartfelt.
ometimes I cannot bear the world.
2These are dark times. You can’t expect me to write

about them in a light manner. Not when what I have to

3For me it is not that easy to believe that human beings can live with

one another. Even at this moment as I talk about it, my chest and my heart
are filled with pain; I have a hard time breathing. 4My heart beats and beats.
5I suffer with those who have disappeared, those who have had to flee their

homes, those who have been tortured. 6I suffer with all the world.
7Is it a foolish wish to have respect for the other’s life as if it were my

own?
8So violently do I know the world. 9How is it I feel love? And where is

it coming from?
10It is not easy to believe.

1. Elizabeth Spires. 2. J. M. Coetzee. 3. Arn Chorn-Pond. 4. José Tolentino

Mendonça. 5. Óscar Romero. 6. Naum Gabo. 7. Arn Chorn-Pond. 8. Rainer
Maria Rilke. 9. Michael Ignatieff. 10. George Orwell.

147
 E A C H C H I L D

A M O R N I N G S T A R

1 Everywhere, everywhere chil-

dren are the scorned people
of the earth, 2adjudged the least-
wise of the land.
3Perhaps that is what ultimate-
ly unites us as a world: the fact
that, no matter how prosperous a
nation, how developed, all share
the plight and embarrassment of
having so many suffering children.
We are united by our neglect, our
abuse, our absence of love.
4My sorrow about this is so
fare is protected, that their lives are
free from fear and want and that
they grow up in peace. 2We cannot
simply think of our own survival;
each new generation is responsible
to ensure the survival of the sev-
enth generation. 3Every decision we
make must relate to the welfare and
well-being of the seventh genera-
tion to come.

deep that I can’t begin to express

it.
5The world is going to be
judged by the children. 6Many of
the things we need can wait. The
children cannot. Right now is the
time their bones are being formed,
their blood is being made, and their
senses are being developed. To
them we cannot answer “Tomor-
row.” Their name is “Today.”
3 Rich or poor, black, white, or
brown, in or out of wedlock,
a baby is a baby, a child is a child.
2In every child who is born, under
no matter what circumstances, and
of no matter what parents, the po-
tentiality of the human race is born
again. 3For each child that’s born, a
morning star rises and sings to the
universe who we are.
4 The mother’s battle for her
child, the father’s battle for his—
with sickness, with poverty, with

2 There is no trust more sacred

than the one the world holds
with children. There is no duty more
important than ensuring that their
rights are respected, that their wel-
war, with all the forces of exploita-
tion and callousness that cheapen
human life—needs to become a
common human battle, waged in
love and in the passion for sur-

CHAPTER 1.1. Toni Morrison. 1.2. Gwendolyn Brooks. 1.3. Audrey Hepburn.
1.4. Donella Meadows. 1.5. Georges Bernanos. 1.6. Gabriela Mistral. CHAP-
TER 2.1. Kofi Annan. 2.2. Linda Clarkson, Vern Morrissette, Gabriel Régallet.
2.3. Anonymous Iroquois chief. CHAPTER 3.1. Bill Clinton. 3.2. James Agee.
3.3. Asaya Barnwell. CHAPTER 4.1. Adrienne Rich.

148
vival. 2In serving the best interests children, ensuring their right to
of children, we serve the best in- participate, and that their views are
terests of all humanity. heard and considered.
3It takes every parent—4it takes 3Children, like all other human

a village—5no, it takes a world— beings, have inalienable rights. 4They

6to teach the children the differ-
ence between right and wrong, and
to encourage them to learn and
grow, and to believe that they can
become whatever they want to be.
7Each of them must know that he or
are not the people of tomorrow,
but people today. They are entitled
to be taken seriously. They have a
right to be treated by adults with
tenderness and respect, as equals.
5They do not constitute anyone’s

she is a miracle, that since the be-
ginning of the world there hasn’t
been, and until the end of the
world there will not be, another
child like them.
8Respect the child. 9If we don’t
stand up for the child, then we
don’t stand for much.
property: they are neither the prop-
erty of their parents nor even of
society. 6They belong only to their
own future freedom.
7We adults destroy most of the
intellectual and creative capacity of
children by the things we do to
them or make them do. We de-
stroy this capacity above all by

5 The impact of armed conflict

on children is everyone’s re-
sponsibility. And it must be ev-
eryone’s concern. 2But creating a
world that is truly fit for children
making them afraid, afraid of not
doing what other people want, of
not pleasing, of making mistakes,
of failing, of being wrong.
8I’ve yet to meet a troubled

does not imply simply the absence
of war. It means having the confi-
dence that our children would not
die of measles or malaria. It means
having access to clean water and
proper sanitation. It means having
primary schools nearby that edu-
cate children, free of charge. It
means changing the world with
child who wasn’t, above all else,
terribly lonely. 9The hurt that trou-
bled children and youth cause is
never greater than the pain they
feel.
6 This is the essence of the ra-
diant child. Belonging to both
heaven and earth, the radiant child

CHAPTER 4.2. Carol Bellamy. 4.3. Bill Clinton. 4.4. African saying. 4.5. Mary Ak-
ers. 4.6. Bill Clinton. 4.7. Pablo Casals. 4.8. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 4.9. Marian
Wright Edelman. CHAPTER 5.1. Graça Mache. 5.2. Carol Bellamy. 5.3. Lucretia
Mott. 5.4. Janusz Korczak. 5.5. Kahlil Gibran. 5.6. Mikhail Bakunin. 5.7. John
Holt. 5.8. L. Tobin. 5.9. Sally Patton. CHAPTER 6.1. Thomas Armstrong.

149
dances into our lives as a bridge
between dark and light, body and
spirit. The radiant child spans and
sings this wholeness in every fiber.
We would all be wise to listen.
Even better to sing and dance
along.
2We may give the children our
love but not our thoughts, for they
have their own thoughts. We may
house their bodies but not their
souls, for their souls dwell in the
house of tomorrow, which we can-
not visit, not even in our dreams.
We may strive to be like them, but
seek not to make them like us. For
life goes not backward nor tarries
with yesterday.
7 I can imagine that someday
we will regard our children
not as creatures to manipulate or
CHAPTER 6.2. Kahlil Gibran. CHAPTER 7.1. Alice Miller. 7.2. Rachel Carson.
7.3. Antonio Novello. 7.4. Joyce Maynard. 7.5. Henry “Hank” Aaron.
150
to change but rather as messengers
from a world we once deeply
knew, but which we have long
since forgotten, who can reveal to
us more about the true secrets of
life, than our parents were ever
able to. 2If they are to keep alive their
inborn sense of wonder, they need
the companionship of at least one
adult who can share it, rediscover-
ing with them the joy, excitement
and mystery of the world we live
in.
3I implore you to see with a
child’s eyes, to hear with a child’s
ears, and to feel with a child’s
heart. 4It’s not only children who
grow. We do too. As much as we
watch to see what the children do
with their lives, they are watching
us to see what we do with ours.
5Inspire them.
 I muse this blessed morning, sad in solitude yet some-
how not alone.
2I didn’t choose solitude.
3I am a loner with walls around me. I have no shadow. I have no voice.
4I have no voice and yet I speak to you, I tell of all things in the world.
5I hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo. 6It is a place where

the echoes always return, even if sometimes slowly.

7There is always somebody listening beyond the wall.

1. Dorothy Livesay. 2. Klaus Kinski. 3. Vivica V. Nguyen. 4. English riddle. 5.

Richard Wright. 6. John O’Donohue. 7. Charles Bukowski.

151
 W H E R E I S

E V E R Y B O D Y ?

1 A great river always begins

somewhere. Often it starts as
a tiny spring bubbling up from a
rock in the soil. But for the stream
to grow into a river, it must meet
is a very tight circle, which can
only be entered through giving up
excessive preoccupation with our
own problems.
2In the Circle, we are all equal.

other tributaries and join them as it When in the Circle, no one is in

heads for a lake or the sea. 2The front of you. No one is behind
river swells with the contribution you. No one is above you. No one
of the small streams. is below you.
3Water, everywhere over the

earth, flows to join together. A

single natural law controls it. Each
of us is a member of a community
and should work within it.
4Where is everybody?
5A person is a person through
other persons. 6It takes community
to maintain a human. 7Community
—our mutually cooperative and vol-
untary venture to assume a sem-
blance of responsibility for our
neighbors. 8Community—strength that
joins our strength to do the work
3 All creatures come into the
world bringing with them the
memory of justice. 2 If we want
a beloved community, we must
stand for justice, have recognition
for difference without attaching dif-
ference to privilege. 3Justice is not
cheap. Justice is not quick. It is not
ever finally achieved. 4We must
stand together to protect the rights
of all. 5Stand together day and
night.
6Where, after all, do human

that needs to be done. rights begin? In small places, close

to home—so close and so small

2 In community knowledge of the

other person increases self-
knowledge; self-knowledge increases
compassion; compassion increases
knowledge of the other person. It
that they cannot be seen on any
maps of the world. Yet they are the
world of the individual person: the
neighborhood he or she lives in; the
school or college he or she attends;

CHAPTER 1.1. Wangari Maathai. 1.2. Bateke saying. 1.3. I Ching. 1.4. Carl
Sandburg. 1.5. African saying. 1.6. Earon Davis. 1.7. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1.8. Starhawk. CHAPTER 2.1. Tarthang Tulku. 2.2. Dave Chief. CHAPTER 3.1.
J. M. Coetzee. 3.2. bell hooks. 3.3. Marian Wright Edelman. 3.4. Leonard
Peltier. 3.5. James Coghill. 3.6. Eleanor Roosevelt.

152
the factory, farm, or office where
he or she works. Such are the places
where every man, woman, and child
seeks equal justice, equal opportu-
nity, equal dignity without discrim-
ination. Unless these rights have
meaning there, they have little mean-
ing anywhere.
7The needs of a human being
are sacred. Their satisfaction can-
patches, alone in groups, alone in
races, even alone in genders. 10We
can’t stay in our corner of the For-
est waiting for others to come to
us. We have to go to them some-
times. 11There is always somebody
or something waiting for us. 12Wait-
ing to help us. 13Waiting for us to
help them.
14Community cannot for long

not be subordinated to any consid- feed on itself; it can only flourish

eration whatsoever. with the coming of others from
beyond, our unknown and undis-

4 Heroes are not giant statues

framed against a red sky. They
are people who say: This is my
community, and it is my responsi-
bility to make it better. 2They ask
for help when they need it.
3In any great undertaking it is
not enough to depend simply upon
ourselves. 4We are never strong e-
nough that we don’t need help.
5Everyone needs help from every-
one. 6It is in the shelter of each
other that we live. 7We are mem-
bers one of another. 8We are each
covered brothers and sisters. 15We
think we know our possibilities.
Then other people come into our
life. And suddenly there are so
many more. 16So we need other
people, who have sampled other
parts of the world. Together we
can make a more complete picture.
We need to report our piece of real-
ity honestly, listen to others, and
remember that the bit of truth we
know is not anywhere near all the
truth there is.
17What do we live for, if it is

other's harvest; we are each other's
business; we are each other's mag-
nitude and bond.
9We allow our ignorance to
prevail upon us and make us think
we can survive alone, alone in
not to make life less difficult for
each other? 18If we were all alone in
the universe with no one to talk to,
no one with which to share the
beauty of the stars, to laugh with,
to touch, what would be our pur-

CHAPTER 3.7. Simone Weil. CHAPTER 4.1. Studs Terkel. 4.2. Rona Barrett.
4.3. Lone Man (Isna-la-wica). 4.4. César Chávez. 4.5. Bertolt Brecht. 4.6. Irish
saying. 4.7. Paul the Apostle. 4.8. Gwendolyn Brooks. 4.9. Maya Angelou.
4.10. A. A. Milne. 4.11. Charles Bukowski. 4.12. Rick Warren. 4.13. Sam Hal-
bert. 4.14. Howard Thurman. 4.15. David Levithan. 4.16. Donella Meadows.
4.17. George Eliot. 4.18. Mitsugi Saotome.

153
pose in life? It is other life, it is
love, which gives our life meaning.
19We cannot live only for our-
selves. A thousand fibers connect
us with our fellow human beings.
20Community today is the planet.
21The survival of the world de-
pends upon our sharing what we
have and working together. If we
don’t, the whole world will die.
First the planet, and next the peo-
ple.
evil for evil. 7Evil shares your bed
and eats at your own table. 8Never
fight it as if it were something that
arose totally outside of yourself.
9Hold unfailing your love for
others. 10Practice hospitality ungrudg-
ingly. 11Extend your hands to those
who are sick; feed those who are
hungry; give rest to those who are
weary; and raise up those who wish
to rise. 12Practice resurrection.
13Bear the burdens of others.
14With mindfulness, you will know

5 Living together is an art. 2Let

us consider how to stir up
one another to love and good
what to do and what not to do to
help.
15Share your burdens. 16What

works. is done for you—allow it to be

3Speak the truth. 4Do not be done. What you must do your-
haughty; never be conceited. 5Live self—make sure you do it.
peaceably with all. 6Repay no one

CHAPTER 4.19. Herman Melville. 4.20. Huston Smith. 4.21. Frank Fools Crow.
CHAPTER 5.1. William Pickens. 5.2. The Book of Hebrews. 5.3. The Gospel of Truth.
5.4. Paul the Apostle. 5.5. Paul the Apostle. 5.6. Paul the Apostle. 5.7. W. H.
Auden. 5.8. Augustine of Hippo. 5.9. The First Epistle of Peter. 5.10. The First
Epistle of Peter. 5.11. The Gospel of Truth. 5.12. Wendell Berry. 5.13. Paul the
Apostle. 5.14. Thich Nhat Hanh. 5.15. Ray Trygstad. 5.16. Ahmad al-Khawwas.

154
 W E M U S T

P R A C T I C E F R E E D O M

1 Stone walls do not a prison

make. 2Though I am in pris-
on, 3am I not free?
from persecution. 9Freedom from
want. 10Freedom from fear. 11Free-
dom to live.
4Freedom is what you do with 12The cause of freedom is not

what’s been done to you. the cause of a race or a sect, a party

or a class—it is the cause of hu-

2 Freedom of mind is real free-

dom—2the right to choose
3our attitude in any given set of cir-
cumstances. 4Whether we will be-
have in each moment with arro-
gance or reverence.
5A person does not have to be
behind bars to be a prisoner. Peo-
ple can be prisoners of their own
concepts and ideas. They can be
mankind, the very birthright of
humanity. 13We are called to it. 14Brute
force, no matter how strongly ap-
plied, can never subdue our basic
desire for it.
15Freedom is never really won
—you earn it and win it in every
generation. 16As long as it is being
striven after, it goes on expanding.
17Freedom for ourselves is not

slaves to their own selves. 6Slave- enough. 18Freedom is for everyone.

ships in shoes. 19There is no such thing as part

freedom. 20It is an indivisible word.

3 There are other kinds of free-

dom that are morally relevant.
2Essential freedoms. 3Freedom of
choice. 4Freedom of movement.
5Freedom of observation and of
judgment. 6Freedom of belief.
7Freedom of expression. 8Freedom
If we want to enjoy it, and fight for
it, we must be prepared to extend
it to everyone, whether they are
rich or poor, whether they agree
with us or not, no matter what
their race or the color of their skin.
21To be free is not merely to cast

CHAPTER 1.1. Richard Lovelace. 1.2. Michael J. Cummings. 1.3. Paul the Apos-
tle. 1.4. Jean-Paul Sartre. CHAPTER 2.1. Babasaheb Ambedkar. 2.2. Archibald
MacLeish. 2.3. Victor Frankl. 2.4. Lawrence Kushner. 2.5. Prem Rawat. 2.6.
Zora Neale Hurston. CHAPTER 3.1. Kristján Kristjánsson. 3.2. Tony Blair.
3.3. Arnold Toynbee. 3.4. John Dewey. 3.5. John Dewey. 3.6. William Schulz.
3.7. Salman Rushdie. 3.8. A. M. Rosenthal. 3.9. Franklin Roosevelt. 3.10.
Franklin Roosevelt. 3.11. Joseph Campbell. 3.12. Anna Julia Cooper. 3.13.
Paul the Apostle. 3.14. The XIVth Dalai Lama. 3.15. Coretta Scott King. 3.16.
Henrik Ibsen. 3.17. Lyndon Johnson. 3.18. Russell Means. 3.19. Nelson Man-
dela. 3.20. Wendell Wilkie. 3.21. Nelson Mandela.

155
off our chains, but to live in a way
that respects and enhances the
freedom of others.
22Those who deny freedom to
others deserve it not for them-
selves. 23Those who profess to fa-
might be pure transparent free-
dom.
2We must be free not because
we claim freedom, but because we
practice it.
3It is no easy walk. 4Many of us

vor freedom, and yet deprecate
agitation in favor of it, want crops
without plowing up the ground.
24They want rain without thunder
and lightning. They want the roar
of the ocean without the roar of its
many waters. 25They are confined
by their own repression.
will have to pass through the valley
of the shadow of death again and
again before we reach the moun-
taintop. 5We cannot rest. 6If you
are tired, keep going; if you are
scared, keep going; if you are hun-
gry, keep going; if you want to
taste freedom, keep going. 7You
will get there. 8We will all get there,

4 I wish that every human life nobody left behind.

CHAPTER 3.22. Abraham Lincoln. 3.23. Frederick Douglass. 3.24. Frederick

Douglass. 3.25. Toni Morrison. CHAPTER 4.1. Simone de Beauvoir. 4.2. Wil-
liam Faulkner. 4.3. Nelson Mandela. 4.4. Nelson Mandela. 4.5. Bernice John-
son Reagon. 4.6. Harriet Tubman. 4.7. Michelle C. Ustaszeski. 4.8. Kyran
Pittman.

156
 I understand it now. 2When I’m dead and gone, I want
to leave something: 3A legacy that inspires others to
dream more, learn more, do more and become more.
4What we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. 5What is urgent, what

gentle, pervades, passes over from us.

6I want to write my name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of

thousands. 7I want someone to be sitting someday talking like I talk about the
world. That’s the kind of legacy I want to leave.
8What I want is that my past should not become your children’s future.
9I did this to protect them.

1. Olivia Pourier. 2. Madonna Thunder Hawk. 3. Dolly Parton. 4. Anatole

France. 5. Katarina Frostenson. 6. Thomas Chalmers. 7. Madonna Thunder
Hawk. 8. Elie Wiesel. 9. Madonna Thunder Hawk.

157
 S I M P L I F Y ,
S I M P L I F Y

1 Things have dropped from

me. 2Nothing belongs to me,
not even the words with which I
cement the hours. 3Ask me not
what I have, but what I am.
4I am content to have you and
to have a conscience.
3Getting and spending, we lay waste
our powers. 4We become obsessed
with money instead of with the
Mystery of Being Alive.
5The love of possessions is a
weakness to be overcome. Its ap-
peal is the material part, and if al-
lowed its way, it will in time disturb

2
nough?
The most urgent question
of the time: How much is e-
one’s spiritual balance. 6If you are
going to be spiritually curious, you
better not get cluttered up with too
2The point in life is to know many material things.
what’s enough—not 3to know how 7 Simplify, simplify. 8 Less is

to be able to afford more. 4Enough more. 9The ultimate sophistication.

is a place we can arrive at and dwell
in. 5To know you have enough is
to be rich.
5 We don’t need to increase our
goods nearly as much as we
need to scale down our wants.

3 Do not strain after the needs

of life. It is sufficient to be
quietly alert and aware of them.
2Eliminate the needless wants of

life, and the labors of life reduce

themselves.
3Any so-called material thing

4 Life is really simple, but we

insist on making it compli-
cated. 2We are busy with the luxury
of things. Their number and multi-
ple faces bring to us confusion.
that we want is merely a symbol: we
want it not for itself, but because it
will content our spirit for the mo-
ment. 4But what happens when the
moment passes?

CHAPTER 1.1. Virginia Woolf. 1.2. Rosa Alice Branco. 1.3. Heinrich Heine.
1.4. Luis García Montero. CHAPTER 2.1. Wendell Berry. 2.2. Gensei. 2.3.
James Heisig. 2.4. Lynne Twist. 2.5. Lao-tzu. CHAPTER 3. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi. CHAPTER 4.1. Confucius. 4.2. Farid al-Din ‘Attar. 4.3. William Word-
sworth. 4.4. Chio-san. 4.5. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa). 4.6. Mary Oliver.
4.7. Henry David Thoreau. 4.8. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. 4.9. Leonardo da
Vinci. CHAPTER 5.1. Donald Horban. 5.2. Edwin Way Teale. 5.3. Mark
Twain. 5.4. Frederick Ferré.

158
 5Happiness does not come
from having much but from being
attached to little. 6We are happy in
proportion to the things we can do
without.
7Don’t be afraid of happiness.
2It means going fewer places in
one day rather than more, seeing
less so we can see more, doing less
so we can do more, acquiring less
so we can have more.

6 To be content with little is

hard, to be content with much,
impossible.
2Until you make peace with
who you are, you’ll never be con-
tent with what you have. 3You own
nothing.
8 Each decision we make, each
action we take, is born out of
an intention. 2When we intend to
do good, we do. When we intend
to do harm, it happens. What each
of us must come to realize is that
our intent always comes through.
3The intention of simple living is

living with balance. This is a mid-

7 Simple living is not about ele-

gant frugality. It is not about
harsh rules and stringent regula-
dle way that moves between the
extremes of poverty and indul-
gence.
tions. Simple living is about free-
dom. It’s about a freedom to
choose space rather than clutter, to
choose open and generous living
9 Everything should be made
as simple as possible, but not
simpler. 2Nothing is as simple as
rather than a secure and sheltered we hope it will be.
way. It’s about choosing time for 3The trouble with simple living

people and ideas and self-growth
rather than for maintenance and
guarding and possessing and clean-
ing. It’s about moving through
life rather lightly, delighting in the
plain and the subtle. It’s about em-
bracing life with wide-open arms.
It’s about living and giving with no
is that, though it can be joyful, rich
and creative, it isn’t simple. 4Any
intelligent fool can make things
bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius
—and a lot of courage—to move
in the opposite direction.
5Often one of the stumbling

strings attached. blocks to living a simpler life is our

CHAPTER 5.5. Cheng Yen. 5.6. Henry David Thoreau. 5.7. Ivana Bozdechová.
CHAPTER 6.1. Marie Ebner von Eschenbach. 6.2. Doris Mortman. 6.3. Mar-
garet Atwood. CHAPTER 7.1. José Hobday. 7.2. Jon Kabat-Zinn. CHAPTER
8.1. Sharon Salzberg. 8.2. Thurgood Marshall. 8.3. Duane Elgin. CHAPTER
9.1. Albert Einstein. 9.2. Jim Horning. 9.3. Doris Janzen Longacre. 9.4. E. F.
Schumacher. 9.5. Elaine St. James.

159
inability or unwillingness to change
how we play some of the games
that got us into these complicated
11 Have nothing in your house
that you do not know to
be useful or believe to be beautiful.
lives in the first place. 2Eliminate physical clutter. 3Elim-

inate the unnecessary so that the

10 Simplicity is an acquired
taste. 2You can’t force it ;
but you can invite it in by finding
necessary may speak.
4But simplification of outward

life is not enough. It is merely the

as much richness as possible in
the few things at hand. 3The best
things in life are nearest: Breath in
your nostrils, light in your eyes,
flowers at your feet, duties at your
hand, the path just before you; 4a
outside. The complete answer is
not to be found on the outside, in
an outward mode of living. This is
only a technique, a road to grace.
The final answer is always inside.
5Your treasure house is within; it

lizard’s rustling, a breath, a flash, a contains all you'll ever need.

moment—a little makes the way of
the best happiness.
5Simplicity doesn’t mean mea-

gerness but rather a certain kind of

richness, the fullness that appears
when we stop stuffing the world
with things.
12 Ten thousand flowers in
spring, the moon in au-
tumn, a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter. If your mind isn’t
clouded by unnecessary things, this
is the best season of your life.

CHAPTER 10.1. Katherine F. Gerould. 10.2. Thomas Moore. 10.3. Robert

Louis Stevenson. 10.4. Friedrich Nietzsche. 10.5. Thomas Moore. CHAPTER
11.1. William Morris. 11.2. D. H. Mondfleur. 11.3. Hans Hofmann. 11.4. Anne
Morrow Lindbergh. 11.5. Ta-chu Hui-hai. CHAPTER 12. Wu-men.

160
 P ain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In
times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to
contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I
have learned to pay attention to right now. In the exact now, I am always all
right. I am breathing in and out. Realizing this, I began to notice that each
moment is not without its beauty.
2When you're in prison, it's especially important to try to live in the

present moment. It's easy to get lost in the past, which you can't change
anyway, or to get lost hoping for the future, which is not yet here. If you do
that, it's like you're not really alive. I choose life.

1. Julia Cameron. 2. Anonymous inmate of a federal women’s prison, Califor-

nia, United States of America.

161
 E V E R Y T H I N G

I S A G I F T

1 We arrive in this world with

birthright gifts—then we spend
the first half of our lives aban-
18None of this is so 19unless all
of it is. 20Everything is most fun-
damentally a gift, 21even the hurtful
doning them or letting others dis- things. 22The world gives itself to
abuse us of them. Then—if we are us. It gives itself freely to us, if we
awake, aware, and able to admit just allow it. It showers us with
our loss—we spend the second gifts.
half trying to recover and reclaim
the gift we once possessed.
2Inner gifts do not find their

way to creatures without just re-

3 You receive the gift best and
you live it best by holding it
with very open hands. 2You must
spect. know not just how to accept it, but
with what grace to share it. 3You

2
ions:
Which is the greatest gift? 2So
many heads, so many opin-
3Natural talent. 4Health. 5An
honest heart. 6Humor. 7Not being
afraid to question. 8Confidence.
9Purity of attention. 10Encourage-
will find your greatest happiness in
using it.
4How do you use it? You use it
in every fiber of life. 5If that gift is
not fulfilled then something will
have been lost.
6So, having gifts that differ ac-

ment. 11Unconditional love and ac-
ceptance. 12True peace of mind.
13Joy. 14To remain young while
growing old. 15Being able to give.
16 Your own self-transformation.
17Your self. . . .
cording to the grace given to us, let
us use them, 7for the common
good. 8We owe it to one another to
get on with what we’re good at. 9But
let us not overrate what we have
received, nor envy others.

CHAPTER 1.1. Parker Palmer. 1.2. Jalaluddin Rumi. CHAPTER 2.1. Um Haief.
2.2. Terence. 2.3. P. K. Thomajan. 2.4. Hippocrates. 2.5. Thomas Jefferson.
2.6. Mark Twain. 2.7. Ruby Dee. 2.8. Seneca. 2.9. Richard Moss. 2.10. Sidney
Madwed. 2.11. Brian Tracy. 2.12. The Moffatts. 2.13. Lisa Rey Marks. 2.14.
German saying. 2.15. Susan Brown. 2.16. Lao-tzu. 2.17. Jean Anouilh. 2.18.
James Baldwin. 2.19. Jacob Neusner. 2.20. Leo O’Donovan. 2.21. Ann Quas-
man. 2.22. David Steindl-Rast. CHAPTER 3.1. Leo O’Donovan. 3.2. Maya
Angelou. 3.3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 3.4. Betty Cooper. 3.5. Martha
Graham. 3.6. Paul the Apostle. 3.7. Paul the Apostle. 3.8. W. H. Auden. 3.9.
Gautama Buddha.

162
 T H E H U M A N B O D Y

I S S A C R E D

1 If any thing is sacred, the

human body is sacred. 2Our
body is precious. It is our vehicle
for awakening. 3This very body
that we have, that’s sitting right
here right now, with its aches and
its pleasures, is exactly what we
need to be fully human, fully a-
wake, fully alive.
4I love the body. Flesh is so
honest. 5The body never lies. 6It
says what words cannot. 7It com-
have cultivated an understanding
of them. 3It is with our passions as
it is with fire and water; they are
good servants, but bad masters.
3 Look into the mirror. 2Just
look at the way the ears rest
next to the head; look at the way
the hairline grows; think of all the
little bones in your wrist. It is a
miracle.
3You inherited this. Look at

municates to us clearly and specifi- the greatness of the whole thing.

cally, if we are willing to listen. 4Use your eyes as if tomorrow you
8Listen to what you know would be stricken blind. 5The truth
through your body. 9Think with is that your body is without fault.
the whole body. 10There is deep 6Look! Don’t hesitate—look! Open

wisdom within our very flesh, if we
can only come to our senses and
feel it. 11There is more wisdom in
our body than in our deepest phi-
losophies.
your eyes, don’t blink, and look,
look—look further. 7Take the whole
universe all at once and put it on
your eyelashes.
8Look at your eyes. 9Your eyes

are the lamp of your body; when

2 The passions are one voice of

the body. 2Those who enter
the gates of heaven are not beings
who have no passions or who have
curbed the passions, but those who
your eyes are sound, your whole
body is full of light. 10If I were to
wish for anything, I should wish
for the eyes which, ever young and
ardent, see the possible.

CHAPTER 1.1. Walt Whitman. 1.2. Gautama Buddha. 1.3. Pema Chödrön. 1.4.
Candea Core-Starke. 1.5. Martha Graham. 1.6. Martha Graham. 1.7. Shakti
Gawain. 1.8. Frances Payne Adler. 1.9. Taisen Deshimaru. 1.10. Elizabeth A.
Behnke. 1.11. Friedrich Nietzsche. CHAPTER 2.1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 2.2.
William Blake. 2.3. Aesop. CHAPTER 3.1. Diane Ackerman. 3.2. Martha Gra-
ham. 3.3. Chögyam Trungpa. 3.4. Helen Keller. 3.5. Muktananda. 3.6.
Chögyam Trungpa. 3.7. Yun-men. 3.8. Paul Showers. 3.9. Jesus. 3.10. Søren
Kierkegaard.

163
 11Look at your feet. You are
standing in the sky. When we think
of the sky, we tend to look up, but
the sky actually begins at the
earth. 12Make your feet your friend.
13When you stand with your two
feet on the ground, you will always
keep your balance. 14You will feel like
your legs are praying.
15Look at your hands. 16If you
17The heart is a small thing, but
18here is my secret, a very simple
secret. It is only with the heart that
you can see rightly; what is essential
is invisible to the eye. 19I would
rather have eyes that cannot see;
ears that cannot hear; lips that can-
not speak, than a heart that cannot
love.

look deeply into the palm of your

hands, you will see your parents
and all generations of your ances-
tors. All of them are alive in this
4 The body has its rights; and it
will have them: they cannot
be trampled on without peril.
2Treat it with care. 3Keep it pure

moment. Each is present in your and clean for the soul to reside in.
body. You are the continuation of 4Learn to relax. 5The sky will bow

each of these people. to your beauty, if you do.

CHAPTER 3.11. Diane Ackerman. 3.12. J. M. Barrie. 3.13. Lao-tzu. 3.14.

Abraham Heschel. 3.15. George Michael. 3.16. Thich Nhat Hanh. 3.17. Fran-
cis Quarles. 3.18. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. 3.19. Robert Tizon. CHAPTER
4.1. Augustus William Hare, Julius Charles Hare. 4.2. Gautama Buddha. 4.3.
B. K. S. Iyengar. 4.4. Norman Vincent Peale. 4.5. Jalaluddin Rumi.

164
 W hen I was little, I lived by a stream. I used to
catch my own fish. Not much to it. It’s mostly
waiting.
2I would like to be a true human being—a choice not altogether possi-

ble now. But this is what I’m for, the side I’m on. And this is what you
should expect of me, as I expect it of myself, though for realization we may
wait a thousand or a million years.
3Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is

clear?

1. Khaled Hosseini. 2. Wendell Berry. 3. Lao-tzu.

165
 T H E S O U L I S

H E R E F O R I T S O W N J O Y

1 The soul is not more than the

body, and the body is not
more than the soul.
6We cannot tell what may hap-
pen to us in the strange medley of
life. But we can decide what hap-
pens in us, and that is what really

2 Is the soul solid, like iron?

Or is it tender and breakable,
like the wings of a moth in the
beak of the owl? Who has it, and
who doesn’t?
2No one really knows what the
soul is, but tremble forth it does,
and just as mysteriously, shudders
away again. 3It comes and goes like
the wind over the water. 4Uncanny,
strange, unsettling.
counts in the end. How to take the
raw stuff of life and make it a thing
of worth and beauty—that is the
test of living. 7It is only when we
can believe that we are creating the
soul that life has any meaning, but
when we can believe it, then there
is nothing we do that is without
meaning and nothing that we suf-
fer that does not hold the seed of
creation in it.

3 You have charge over your

own soul. 2What shall it profit
you, if you gain the whole world,
and lose your own soul?
(3I have seen some souls so
4 The soul should always stand
ajar ready to welcome the
ecstatic experience. 2How to keep
ajar the door?
3Beauty feeds the soul, wakens

compressed that they would have
fitted into a small thimble, and
found room to move there—wide
room.)
4The soul is here for its own
joy. 5Every moment and every e-
vent of your life on earth plants
it, and brings it to life as nothing
else can. 4When you have only two
pennies left in the world, buy a loaf
of bread with one, and a lily with
the other. 5Everybody needs beau-
ty as well as bread.
6Beauty as we feel it is some-

something in it. thing indescribable; what it is or

CHAPTER 1. Walt Whitman. CHAPTER 2.1. Mary Oliver. 2.2. Phil Cousineau.
2.3. Mary Oliver. 2.4. Phil Cousineau. CHAPTER 3.1. The Qur’an. 3.2. Jesus.
3.3. Olive Schreiner. 3.4. Jalaluddin Rumi. 3.5. Thomas Merton. 3.6. Joseph
Fort Newton. 3.7. May Sarton. CHAPTER 4.1. Emily Dickinson. 4.2. Em-
manuel Moses. 4.3. Thomas Moore. 4.4. Chinese saying. 4.5. John Muir. 4.6.
George Santayana.

166
what it means can never be said. 7It
is. 8It is an experience. 9To keep
beauty in its place is to make all
things beautiful; 10everything in the
universe a pitcher brimming with it.
beginning of our moral sensibility.
What we believe is beautiful we
will not wantonly destroy. 2The real
sin against life is to abuse and de-
stroy beauty, even one’s own—
even more, one’s own, for that has

5 Look for the beauty in things.

2One does not see anything

until one sees its beauty. 3The

been put in our care and we are
responsible for its well-being.
3If you could only see your

moment you give close attention to
anything, it becomes a mysterious,
awesome, indescribably magnifi-
cent world in itself.
4People often say that “beauty
is in the eye of the beholder.” And
I say that the most liberating thing
about beauty is realizing that we are
the beholder. This empowers us to
beauty, for you are greater than the
sun. Why are you withered and
shriveled in this prison of dust?
You are more precious than both
heaven and earth. You know not
your own worth. 4Real beauty is
to be true to oneself. 5The authen-
tic self is the soul made visible.
6Though we travel the world over

find beauty in places where others
have not dared to look. 5Some-
times, I look for something that is
particularly ugly, and I make an ef-
fort to see something beautiful in it.
6The longer I live the more
beautiful life becomes (7nothing is
perfect and everything is perfect).
8Everything I once took for grant-
ed is now stunningly beautiful. 9It’s
hard to stay mad when there is so
much beauty in the world.
to find the beautiful, we must carry
it with us or we find it not.
7 If you foolishly ignore beauty,
you will soon find yourself
without it. Your life will be impov-
erished. But if you invest in beauty,
it will remain with you all the days
of your life. 2You will never grow
old. 3But you may sometimes walk
alone.

6 The ability to see beauty is the 8 Sanctuary, on a personal level,

is where we perform the job

CHAPTER 4.7. Emily Dickinson. 4.8. D. H. Lawrence. 4.9. George Santayana.

4.10. Jalaluddin Rumi. CHAPTER 5.1. Maya Angelou. 5.2. Oscar Wilde. 5.3.
Henry Miller. 5.4. Salma Hayek. 5.5. Zeb Reynolds. 5.6. Frank Lloyd Wright.
5.7. Alice Walker. 5.8. Zeb Reynolds. 5.9. Lester Burnham. CHAPTER 6.1.
Sean Parker Dennison. 6.2. Katherine Anne Porter. 6.3. Jalaluddin Rumi. 6.4.
Laetitia Casta. 6.5. Sarah Ban Breathnach. 6.6. Ralph Waldo Emerson. CHAP-
TER 7.1. Frank Lloyd Wright. 7.2. Franz Kafka. 7.3. Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe. CHAPTER 8.1. Christopher Forrest McDowell.

167
of taking care of our soul,
2absolutely free from all worldly
engagements. 3It is only when we
silent the blaring sounds of our
daily existence that we can finally
hear the whispers of truth that life
reveals to us.
4If we feel demoralized and
3In this age of crowds, 4soli-
tude is difficult. 5What a commen-
tary on civilization, when being
alone is being suspect; when one
has to apologize for it, make ex-
cuses, hide the fact that one prac-
tices it—like a secret vice.
6Solitude is impractical, and yet

exhausted, it is best, for the sake of — be able to be alone. 8Never be

7

everyone, to withdraw and restore afraid to sit awhile and think.

ourselves. 5The very act of resting is 9Love your solitude, 10keep your

the hardest and most courageous solitude. 11Solitude; not loneliness.

act we can perform.
6Certain springs are tapped on-
ly when we are alone. 7The whole
value of solitude depends upon
one’s self; it may be a sanctuary or
a prison, a haven of repose or a
place of punishment, a heaven or a
hell, as we ourselves make it.
8When we cannot bear to be alone,
it means we do not properly value
the only companion we will have
from birth to death—ourselves.
12Our language has wisely sensed
the two sides of being alone. It has
created the word loneliness to ex-
press the pain of being alone (13the
poverty of self), 14and the word
solitude to express the glory of
being alone (15the richness of self).
16Loneliness is like sitting in an
empty room and being aware of
the space around you. It is a condi-
tion of separateness. Solitude is
becoming one with the space a-
round you. It is a condition of un-

9 By all means use sometimes

to be alone. 2If you are alone
you belong entirely to yourself. If
you are accompanied by even one
companion you belong only half to
ion. Loneliness is small, solitude is
large. Loneliness closes in around
you; solitude expands toward the
infinite.
17When your self-offering comes

yourself, or even less. to the fore, loneliness is bound

CHAPTER 8.2. Henry David Thoreau. 8.3. K. T. Jong. 8.4. The XIVth Dalai
Lama. 8.5. Thomas Merton. 8.6. Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 8.7. John Lub-
bock. 8.8. Eda LeShan. CHAPTER 9.1. George Herbert. 9.2. Leonardo da
Vinci. 9.3. Thomas Merton. 9.4. Rainier Maria Rilke. 9.5. Anne Morrow Lind-
bergh. 9.6. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 9.7. Thomas Browne. 9.8. Lorraine Hans-
berry. 9.9. Rainier Maria Rilke. 9.10. Simone Weil. 9.11. Marya Mannes. 9.12.
Paul Tillich. 9.13. May Sarton. 9.14. Paul Tillich. 9.15. May Sarton. 9.16. Kent
Nerburn. 9.17. Sri Chinmoy.

168
to disappear. ened. 2We find the gentleness with
which we can truly love. The more

10 Solitude vivifies. 2It g ives

birth to the original in us.
3In solitude the mind gains strength
solitary we are the more affection we
have.
3While being mindful of your

and learns to lean upon itself.
4Be alone and be silent. 5Si-
lence is a source of great strength.
6It is the absolute poise or balance
of body, mind and spirit. 7It helps
us avoid engaging in the games of
competition and illusion that reg-
ularly seduce us in the outside
world. It also helps us avoid dis-
traction. It helps focus the busy
mind—the mind that always has to
duties, set time aside, to be alone
with yourself. 4You need not do
anything. Remain sitting at your
table and listen. You need not even
listen, just wait. You need not even
wait, just learn to be quiet, still and
solitary. And the world will freely
offer itself to you unmasked. It has
no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at
your feet.
5How you act when you’re a-

be doing something, thinking lone affects the rest of your life.

something, the mind that always 6Renew yourself completely each

has to be otherwise engaged lest it
become introspective and allow the
soul’s voice to override its own.
This quality of silence allows us to
engage in discernment. We carry
this silence within us, even when we
are with others. It allows us to hold
our center amid the chaos of our
life.
8Everything contains some si-
lence. 9Listen to it. 10It may be as
variously shaded as speech.
day; do it again, and again, and for-
ever again. 7See deeply the beauty
and interconnectedness of all life;
then think, speak and act from
what you see.
12 We are all “los immigran-
tes,” the Soul is the First
Immigrant: The Soul cannot be
held back by any imaginary bound-
ary drawn against it; not by moun-
tain ranges, not by rivers, nor by
human scorn. The Soul goes eve-

11 In solitude our intimacy

with each other is deep-
rywhere, like an old woman in her
right mind, going anywhere she

CHAPTER 10.1. Joseph Roux. 10.2. Thomas Mann. 10.3. Laurence Sterne.
10.4. Henry Miller. 10.5. Lao-tzu. 10.6. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa). 10.7.
Caroline Myss. 10.8. Kay Ryan. 10.9. Samuel Beckett. 10.10. Edith Wharton.
CHAPTER 11.1. Henri Nouwen. 11.2. Thomas Merton. 11.3. Dhammavadaka.
11.4. Franz Kafka. 11.5. Chögyam Trungpa. 11.6. Chinese saying. 11.7. Maggie
Steincrohn Davis. CHAPTER 12. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

169
wishes, saying whatever she wants, in her reach. Wherever she goes,
bending to mend whatever is with- the Soul brings new life.

170
 I write these words, quickly repeat them softly to myself.
2When one has lived a long time alone, 3words

mean more than what is set down on paper. 4It takes

the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning. 5Without a
human voice to read them aloud, they have no real existence in our world.
They are like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes
of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their
music to life.
6It is written the act of writing is holy, words are sacred, and your

breath brings out the god in them. 7Read these words aloud. Chant, sing,
intone them. 8If you were here, I’d ask you to recite whole chapters.
9Sacred words bring out the god in you.

1. Suheir Hammad. 2. Galway Kinnell. 3. Maya Angelou. 4. Maya Angelou. 5.

John Connolly. 6. Suheir Hammad. 7. Vicki Dello Joio. 8. Immanuel Mifsud.
9. Suheir Hammad.

171
 J O Y I S T H E L I T T L E B I R D

W E A L L W A N T T O C A T C H

1 The gloom of the world is but

a shadow. Behind it, yet with-
in our reach, is joy.
2Joy delights in Joy. 3It is the
little bird that has broken out of
the egg. 4It is the bird that we all
want to catch. It is the same bird
that we all love to see flying. 5It
lands on the roof of the next
house, singing, and disappears when
it wants to. We are happy either
way.
large enough to contain so much
happiness, you shrug, you raise
your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are
not responsible. You take no cred-
it, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to
hold it, and share it, and in that
way, be known.
3 The joy of a spirit is the
measure of its power. 2The
saint is continually tripping over

2 Joy is not in things; it is in us.

2We find greatest joy, not in

getting, but in expressing what we

are. 3It comes of the capacity to
feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to
joy and bursting out in laughter
and saying, “I surrender! 3I am that
I am, I am beauty, I am peace, I am
one with Mother Earth.”
4Joy makes the soul so forget-

think freely, to risk life, to be ful of itself, and of everything, that

needed.
4There is only one blasphemy,
and that is the refusal to experience
joy. 5Why not choose joy? Why not
live in joy? 6If we are not happy
and joyous at this season, for what
other season shall we wait and for
what other time shall we look?
7The mere sense of living is joy
enough. 8Since there is no place
it is conscious of nothing, and able
to speak of nothing, save of that
which proceeds from its joy.
4 I cannot believe that the in-
scrutable universe turns on an
axis of suffering; surely the strange
beauty of the world must some-
where rest on pure joy!
2Behind all this, some great

CHAPTER 1.1. Giovanni Giocondo. 1.2. William Shakespeare. 1.3. J. M. Barrie.

1.4. Sri Chinmoy. 1.5. Naomi Shihab Nye. CHAPTER 2.1. Richard Wagner.
2.2. R. J. Baughan. 2.3. Storm Jameson. 2.4. Paul Rudnick. 2.5. Leo F. Busca-
glia. 2.6. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. 2.7. Emily Dickinson. 2.8. Naomi Shihab Nye.
CHAPTER 3.1. Ninon de Lenclos. 3.2. Hafiz. 3.3. Babatunde Olatunji. 3.4.
Mother Teresa. CHAPTER 4.1. Louise Bogan. 4.2. Yehuda Amichai.

172
happiness is hiding. 3Keep knock-
ing, and the joy inside will eventu-
ally open up a window and look
out to see who’s there.
4The world is full of suffering
indeed, and to turn our backs on it
is to work a terrible unkindness.
But life indeed is also to be en-
joyed. 5It is not always what we
11Make peace with the universe.
Take joy in it. It will turn to gold.
Resurrection will be now. Every
moment, a new beauty. 12In my own
experience, it does take effort; you
need to do your best to see joy, ex-
perience it, absorb it. It’s hard work
but it’s pleasant.
13I trust all joy.

want it to be, but to make the best

of it as it is, is the only way. 6There
are always flowers for those who
want to see them.
7All of us have had the experi-
ence of a sudden joy that came
when nothing in the world had
forewarned us of its coming—a joy
so thrilling that if it was born of
misery we remembered even the
5 Life finds its purpose and
fulfillment in the expansion
of joy. 2Thousands of candles can
be lit from a single candle, and the
life of the candle will not be short-
ened. Joy never decreases by being
shared. 3It is increased by spread-
ing it to others.
4The sharing of joy forms a

misery with tenderness. bridge between the sharers which

8Joy and sorrow are insepara-
ble. Together they come and when
one sits alone with you, remember
that the other is asleep upon your
bed.
9Participate joyfully in the sor-
rows of the world. 10Welcome the
Peace that is present in every sec-
ond without exception, even when
it appears to be in turmoil, trusting
that in every disturbance is a Peace.
can be the basis for understanding
much of what is not shared be-
tween them, and lessens the threat
of their difference.
5Cultivate more joy by arrang-
ing your life so that more joy will
be likely.
6 Let a joy keep you. Reach out
your hands and take it when it
runs by.

CHAPTER 4.3. Jalaluddin Rumi. 4.4. Frederick Buechner. 4.5. Jennie Jerome
Churchill. 4.6. Henri Matisse. 4.7. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. 4.8. Kahlil Gi-
bran. 4.9. Joseph Campbell. 4.10. Gillian Kean. 4.11. Jalaluddin Rumi. 4.12.
Crisophe André. 4.13. Theodore Roethke. CHAPTER 5.1. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi. 5.2. Sutta Nipata. 5.3. Robert Murray McCheyne. 5.4. Audre Lorde. 5.5.
Georgia Witkin. CHAPTER 6. Carl Sandburg.

173
 A troubling dream last night.
I had died but had not left the world yet. I was in
the company of a woman, one of the living, younger
than myself, who had been with me when I died and understood what was
happening to me. She was doing her best to soften the impact of death
while shielding me from other people, people who did not care for me as I
had become and wanted me to depart at once.
Despite her protectiveness, this young woman did not lie to me. She
too made it clear that I could not stay; and indeed I knew that my time was
short, that I had a day or two at most, that no amount of protesting and
weeping and clinging could change that.
2That was the point at which I awoke. I knew at once that I had been

dreaming, that the dream had gone on for a considerable time, that it was a
dream about my own death, that I was lucky to be able to wake from it—“I
still have time left,” I breathed to myself, and felt 3an unbounded joy at be-
ing alive, at having been given the chance to live through all I have lived
through.

1. J. M. Coetzee. 2. J. M. Coetzee. 3. Václav Havel.

174
 S E N D I N

T H E C L O W N S

1 Here are two envelopes. In

one there’s a joke that’s twice
as good as in the other. You can
keep one of the jokes. Pick an en-
velope, open it, and read the joke.
The joke in the other is twice or
half as good. If I let you switch,
would you?
2What soap is to the body,
have not danced at least once. 5On
to the dance, let the joy be uncon-
fined!
(6Just to warn you: 7Those who
dance are thought to be quite in-
sane by those who cannot hear the
music.)

laughter is to the soul.

3Are you having a laugh?
4 Nothing shows our character
more than what we laugh at.
2If you wish to glimpse inside a

human soul, don’t bother analyzing

2 Sometimes it is better to laugh

than to pray; and laughter
itself can become a kind of prayer.
2It is a holy thing, as sacred as mu-
sic and silence and solemnity, may-
be more sacred. It is like mercy;
it heals. 3Like a welcome summer
rain, it may suddenly cleanse and
cool the earth.
the person’s ways of being silent, of
talking, of weeping, of seeing how
much they are moved by noble i-
deas; you will get better results if
you just watch them laugh. If they
laugh well, they’re a good person.
5 The burden of the self is
lightened when you laugh at
yourself. 2Humor thrives between

3 The most wasted day of all is

that on which we have not
laughed. 2Humor is the great thing,
your aspirations and your limita-
tions. 3When you can laugh at your-
self, you are free.
the saving thing; 3it is just common
sense, dancing. 4We should con-
sider every day lost on which we 6 It is only humanity who laughs.
(2Or so they say. 3I happen to

CHAPTER 1.1. Nachoem M. Wijnberg. 1.2. Yiddish saying. 1.3. Andy Millman.
CHAPTER 2.1. Drew Leder. 2.2. Ted Loder. 2.3. Langston Hughes. CHAPTER
3.1. Nicolas Chamfort. 3.2. Mark Twain. 3.3. William James. 3.4. Friedrich
Nietzsche. 3.5. Mark Twain. 3.6. Jeanne Jackson. 3.7. Angela Monet. CHAP-
TER 4.1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 4.2. Fyodor Dostoevsky. CHAPTER
5.1. Rabindranath Tagore. 5.2. Victor Borge. 5.3. Ted Loder. CHAPTER 6.1.
Friedrich Nietzsche. 6.2. Arne Jacobsen. 6.3. Beatrice Wood.

175
believe 4a great many animals laugh,
and 5the earth laughs in flowers.)
6We suffer so deeply that we
had to invent laughter. 7It may be a
form of courage.
8Total absence of humor ren-
when it comes, it plops down in
your favorite chair and stays as
long as it wants, 4reminding you that
no matter how high the throne you
sit on, you sit on your bottom.
5The person who can bring the

ders life impossible. 9If we couldn’t spirit of laughter into a room is

laugh, we would all go insane. (10If
I did not laugh, I should die—
11would long ago have committed
suicide.)
12I have seen what a laugh can
do. It can transform almost un-
bearable tears into something bear-
able, even hopeful. 13It can turn
painful situations around. 14It gives
us distance. It allows us to step
back from an event, deal with it,
and then move on.
15I have learned to laugh at the
indeed blessed.
6Humor is truth. 7Perhaps the
mission of those who love human-
kind is to make people laugh at the
truth, to make truth laugh. 8One
hearty laugh together will bring
enemies into a closer communion
of heart than hours spent on both
sides in inward wrestling with the
mental demon of uncharitable feel-
ing.

humorous side of the most dan-

gerous moments.
8 When you realize how perfect
everything is, you will tilt your
head back and laugh at the sky. 2At
the height of laughter, the universe

7 Laughter is the closest dis-

tance between two people.
2Against its assault nothing can
is flung into a kaleidoscope of new
possibilities.
3Send in the clowns.

stand. 3You can’t deny laughter;

CHAPTER 6.4. David Lourie. 6.5. e. e. cummings. 6.6. Friedrich Nietzsche.

6.7. Linda Ellerbee. 6.8. Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. 6.9. Jimmy Buffett. 6.10.
Abraham Lincoln. 6.11. Mahatma Gandhi. 6.12. Bob Hope. 6.13. Bill Cosby.
6.14. Bob Newhart. 6.15. Anne Frank. CHAPTER 7.1. Victor Borge. 7.2. Mark
Twain. 7.3. Stephen King. 7.4. Taki. 7.5. Bennett Alfred Cerf. 7.6. Victor
Borge. 7.7. Umberto Eco. 7.8. William James. CHAPTER 8.1. Gautama Bud-
dha. 8.2. Jean Houston. 8.3. Stephen Sondheim.

176
 I s this treatise of mine itself nothing but
a kind of game?

Plotinus.

177
 P L A Y I S T H E

E X U L T A T I O N O F T H E P O S S I B L E

1 Do you play well?

2Play is the exultation of

the possible. 3It is a happy talent to

know how. 4We have forgotten
how—getting our idea of play
mixed up with competitiveness and
passive enjoyment.
5Children, who play life, dis-
cern its true law and relations more
clearly than adults. 6Play is freedom
3 To be playful is not to be
trivial or frivolous, or to act
as though nothing of consequence
will happen. 2Play—3healthful play
—4is serious. 5It is the beginning of
knowledge. 6Whoever wants to un-
derstand much must play much. 7It
is the only way the highest intelli-
gence of humankind can unfold.
8Almost all creativity involves

itself—activity for its own sake, purposeful play. 9The creation of

spontaneity, pure realization. 7Yet something new is not accomplished
today we seldom associate free- by the intellect but by the play in-
dom with play. Freedom is grim— stinct acting from inner necessity.
something to be fought for, some- 10To stimulate creativity, one must

thing that we feel may confront us develop the childlike inclination for
with antagonisms and even hatred play and the childlike desire for
instead of generating effusiveness recognition.
and spontaneity and joy.

2 In the true man or woman

there is a child concealed who
wants to play. 2We are never more
fully alive, more completely our-
selves, or more deeply engrossed in
anything than when we are playing.
3Play keeps us vital and alive. It
gives us an enthusiasm for life that
is irreplaceable.
4 But what is work and what is
not work? Is it work to dig, to
carpenter, to plant trees, to fell
trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to
feed chickens, to play the piano, to
take photographs, to build a house,
to cook, to sew, to repair motorcy-
cles? All of these things are work to
somebody, and all of them are play
to somebody. There are in fact

CHAPTER 1.1. Mother Teresa. 1.2. Martin Buber. 1.3. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
1.4. Mari Messer. 1.5. Henry David Thoreau. 1.6. Walter J. Ong. 1.7. Walter J.
Ong. CHAPTER 2.1. Friedrich Nietzsche. 2.2. Charles Schaefer. 2.3. Lucia
Capocchione. CHAPTER 3.1. James Carse. 3.2. David Hockney. 3.3. Isaac
Watts. 3.4. David Hockney. 3.5. George Dorsey. 3.6. Gottfried Benn. 3.7.
Joseph Chilton Pearce. 3.8. Abraham Maslow. 3.9. Carl Jung. 3.10. Albert
Einstein. CHAPTER 4.1. George Orwell.

178
very few activities which cannot be
classed either as work or play ac-
cording as you choose to regard
them.
2Masters in the art of living
whether they are working or playing.
To themselves, they’re always doing
both.

make little distinction between work

and play. They simply pursue their
5 Yes, take a little time to play.
2Play with abandon, 3with your

soul as well as your body. 4Play as

vision of excellence at whatever long as you live.
they do, leaving others to decide

CHAPTER 4.2. James Michener. CHAPTER 5.1. Edwin Markham. 5.2. Mari-
anne Radmacher Hershey. 5.3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. 5.4. Lemuel K. Wash-
burn.

179
 I ’ve been telling you a story. 2It’s nearly done now.
3It never would have happened on my own. 4It took

the voices. Especially the 5voice that returned me to my-

self, that 6persistent voice telling me to write 7what should not be forgotten.
8Of course it is not the whole story (9no story contains the whole story),
10but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will.
11How to be the storyteller?
12Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that

everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be
found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don’t believe
them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full
of knots. It’s all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to
fathom the end.
13Everybody is a story. 14It’s important to know someone’s story—
15the history of every individual should be a Bible. 16It’s what we all carry

with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our sto-
ries and learn from them. 17They can conquer fear, you know. They can
make the heart bigger.
18The universe is a story, too, a life story 19within which we must find

and tell our own story. 20This must never be forgotten.

1. Trevor Pateman. 2. Ellen Bryson. 3. Ellen Bryson. 4. George William Rus-

sell. 5. Jalaluddin Rumi. 6. Shan-Chi Ko. 7. Isabel Allende. 8. Jeanette Winter-
son. 9. Åsne Seierstad. 10. Jeanette Winterson. 11. Alena Marchwinski. 12.
Jeanette Winterson. 13. Rachel Naomi Remen. 14. Jennifer L. Holm. 15. No-
valis. 16. William Carlos Williams. 17. Ben Okri. 18. James Conlon. 19. Brian
Swimme. 20. Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo.

180
 W O R K I S

L O V E M A D E V I S I B L E

1 What work should you do?

2Work as joy.
3Don’t ask what the world
and doing. 4Doing. That’s the only
thing.
5Train your head and hands to

needs. Ask what makes you come do, your head and heart to dare.
alive, and go do it. Because what 6Consciously cultivate the ordinary.

the world needs is people who 7Do the common things of life in

have come alive. 4Your work is to
discover your work and then with
all your heart to give yourself to it.
5Work is the body’s best prayer.
6Do it with all your heart. Try to
work selflessly. Pour yourself into
whatever you do. Love and beauty
an uncommon way. 8Do even small
things with great love; 9put your
heart, mind, intellect and soul into
them. 10When you do things from
your soul, you feel a river moving
in you, a joy.
11Do something worth remem-

are within you. Try to express bering. 12Then forget about it.
them through your actions. 7En- 13When the master’s work is done,

thusiasm in your daily work light- he or she forgets it. That is why it
ens effort and turns even labor into lasts forever.
pleasant tasks.
8Work is love made visible. 9It

is not the magnitude of our actions

but the amount of love that is put
into them that matters.
3 Work without a why. 2Let not
the fruits of action be your
motive. 3Do not depend on the
hope of results. You may have to
face the fact that your work will be

2 Knowing is not enough. Will-

ing is not enough. 2Vision
without action is a daydream. 3Com-
mitment is a line you must cross. It
is the difference between dreaming
apparently worthless and even
achieve no result at all, if not per-
haps results opposite to what you
expect.
4It's the action, not the fruit of

CHAPTER 1.1. Mellonie I. Taylor. 1.2. Franz Kafka. 1.3. Howard Thurman.
1.4. Gautama Buddha. 1.5. The Mother. 1.6. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. 1.7.
James Baldwin. 1.8. Kahlil Gibran. 1.9. Mother Teresa. CHAPTER 2.1. Pearl
Buck. 2.2. Japanese saying. 2.3. Bernie Fuchs. 2.4. Ernest J. Gaines. 2.5. Jo-
seph Seamon Cotter, Jr. 2.6. Walker Percy. 2.7. George Washington Carver.
2.8. Mother Teresa. 2.9. Sivananda Saraswati. 2.10. Jalaluddin Rumi. 2.11. El-
vis Presley. 2.12. Gary Snyder. 2.13. Lao-tzu. CHAPTER 3.1. Meister Eckhart.
3.2. Bhagavad Gita. 3.3. Thomas Merton. 3.4. Mahatma Gandhi.

181
the action, that’s important. 5As for you never know which will
you get used to this idea, you start grow—perhaps it all will.
more and more to concentrate not 9Don’t feel entitled to anything

on the results, but on the value, the you didn’t sweat and struggle for.
rightness, the truth of the work 10What we obtain too cheap, we

itself. You gradually struggle less esteem too lightly.

and less for an idea and more and
more for specific people.
5 Light is the task where many
share the toil. 2We don't ac-

4 When in doubt, do some-

thing. 2You can do what you
have to do, and sometimes you can
do it even better than you think
you can. 3Start by doing what’s
necessary; then do what’s possible;
and suddenly you are doing the
impossible. 4The impossible is of-
ten the untried.
5Confront the difficult while it
complish anything in this world
alone. 3None of us got where we
are solely by pulling ourselves up
by our bootstraps. 4Even from the
depth of need and despair, we can
work together, can organize our-
selves to solve our own problems
and fill our own needs with dignity
and strength.

is still easy; accomplish the great

task by a series of small acts. 6If
you add a little to a little, and then
do it again, soon that little shall be
much.
7It is wonderful how often the
mustard-seed germinates and roots
itself. 8Keep on sowing your seed,
6 One final word: 2Besides the
noble art of getting things
done, there is the noble art of leav-
ing things undone. Nature does
nothing uselessly. 3You must re-
member this, but 4don’t let it be an
excuse for laziness.

CHAPTER 3.5. Thomas Merton. CHAPTER 4.1. Harry Chapin. 4.2. Jimmy Car-
ter. 4.3. Francis of Assisi. 4.4. Jim Goodwin. 4.5. Lao-tzu. 4.6. Hesiod. 4.7.
Florence Nightingale. 4.8. The Book of Ecclesiastes. 4.9. Marian Wright Edelman.
4.10. Thomas Paine. CHAPTER 5.1. Homer. 5.2. Sandra Day O’Connor. 5.3.
Thurgood Marshall. 5.4. César Chávez. CHAPTER 6.1. Daniel Sulmasy. 6.2.
Aristotle. 6.3. Herman Hupfield. 6.4. Anonymous Cherokee man.

182
 W E C A N N O T S U R V I V E

W I T H O U T W I S D O M

1 Wisdom is Life That Knows

It Is Living. 2We are now far
too clever to survive without it.
(3Cleverness is not wisdom. 4Clev-
erness is serviceable for everything,
sufficient for nothing. 5Sell it and
the air or of fishes in the water is
invisible, even so is the path of the
possessors of wisdom. 2Do not
seek to follow in their footsteps.
Seek what they sought.
3Everyone and everything a-

buy bewilderment.) round you is your teacher. 4Be

humble. Be teachable. Lean upon

2 Does not wisdom call, does

not understanding raise her
voice? On the heights beside the
way, in the paths she takes her
stand; beside the gates in front of
the town, she cries aloud, “Pay
attention.”
2To pay attention, this is our
endless and proper work. 3This is
wisdom; 4wisdom of the soul, not
susceptible of proof, being its own
proof. 5Whatever we put our atten-
tion on will grow stronger in our
life.
6Awaken. 7Keep awake. 8Turn
away from the cave of your sleep-
ing. 9See the preciousness of all
things. 10There is no greater wealth.
the wisdom of others til you have
gained your own. 5If people offer
their help or wisdom as you go
through life, accept it gratefully.
You can learn much from those
who have gone before you. But
never be afraid or hesitant to step
off the accepted path and head off
in your own direction. 6We do not
receive wisdom, we must discover
it for ourselves, after a journey
through the wilderness, which no
one else can make for us, which no
one can spare us, for our wisdom
is the point of view from which we
come at last to regard the world.
4 Wisdom also requires assidu-
ous and frequent questioning.

3 As the path of the birds in (2Sometimes questions are more

CHAPTER 1.1. Frederick Franck. 1.2. E. F. Schumacher. 1.3. Euripides. 1.4.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel. 1.5. Jalaluddin Rumi. CHAPTER 2.1. The Book of Proverbs.
2.2. Mary Oliver. 2.3. Ajahn Chah. 2.4. Walt Whitman. 2.5. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi. 2.6. Gautama Buddha. 2.7. Jesus. 2.8. Jalaluddin Rumi. 2.9. Jack Korn-
field. 2.10. Nahjul Balagha. CHAPTER 3.1. Mahabharata. 3.2. Matsuo Bashō.
3.3. Ken Keyes, Jr. 3.4. Dinah Mulock Craik. 3.5. Edmund O’Neill. 3.6. Mar-
cel Proust. CHAPTER 4.1. Peter Abelard. 4.2. Nancy Willard.

183
important than answers.) 3Test ev-
erything; hold fast what is good.
4Never, never rest contented with
any circle of ideas, but always be
certain that a wider one is still pos-
sible.
5When you learn about yourself
there are no answers to the impor-
tant questions of existence such as
“who am I?” and “why am I here?”
The sage is silent. The sage is smil-
ing. The sage just is.

from yourself, out of that learning

wisdom comes. 6It lies neither in
6 What do I know?
2Before addressing the peo-

ple the prophet on return from the

fixity nor in change, but in the dia- desert bends over the well to quench
lectic between the two. his thirst but freezes when he sees
his reflection—his open mouth a

5 The nature of light is to shine.

The way of the river is to re-
turn home to its sea. The essence
zero.
3I know nothing, nothing! I have

everything to learn.
of human is being. For the sage

CHAPTER 4.3. Paul the Apostle. 4.4. Pearl Bailey. 4.5. Jiddu Krishnamurti.
4.6. Octavio Paz. CHAPTER 5. Chad Christopher Cobb. CHAPTER 6.1. Michel
de Montaigne. 6.2. Ronalds Briedis. 6.3. Eleanora Duse.

184
 I have been blessed with the sweetest and kindest sleep
this night.
2I think over again my small adventures. My fears,

those small ones that seemed so big. All the vital things I had to get and
reach. And yet there is only one great thing—the only thing: To live to see
the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.
3Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
4I want to get up early one more morning.
5I hate to seem greedy—I have so much to be thankful for already. But

I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

1. Åsne Seierstad. 2. Inuit song. 3. Thomas Merton. 4. Raymond Carver. 5.

Raymond Carver.

185
 P A T I E N C E ,
T H E C O M P A N I O N O F W I S D O M

1 By the time it came to the

edge of the forest the stream
had grown up, so that it was al-
happen too quickly or get changes
in place right away; not having the
patience to let things develop.
most a river, and being grown-up, 3One moment of patience may

it did not run and jump and sparkle
along as it used to do when it was
younger, but moved more slowly.
For it knew now where it was go-
ing, and it said to itself, “There is
no hurry. We shall get there some
day.”
2Do not push the river, it will
flow by itself. 3Patience, if you re-
member, that is what one needs.
ward off great disaster. One mo-
ment of impatience may ruin a
whole life.
4 Do not be in a hurry. 2The
snail has no hands, the snail
has no feet, gently the snail climbs
the tree. 3Patience wins all that it
strives for.

2 The truest fortitude, 2the great-

est prayer, is patience. 3It is an
ocean on account of its depth.
4Patience is the companion of
wisdom. 5It is of two kinds: patience
over what pains us, and patience
against what we covet. 6It is the key
5 A woman watches her pear tree
day after day, impatient for
the ripening of the fruit. Let her
attempt to force the process, and
she may spoil both fruit and tree.
But let her patiently wait, and the
ripe fruit at length falls into her lap.
2Who would have guessed it

to contentment, 7the key to joy. possible that waiting is sustainable.

8Whoever is out of patience is out A place with its own harvest.
of possession of their soul. 3No great thing is created sud-

denly. There must be time. Let it

3 Experience has taught me this,

that we undo ourselves by im-
patience—2wanting to see things
first blossom, then bear fruit, then
ripen.
4For everything there is a sea-

CHAPTER 1.1. A. A. Milne. 1.2. Polish saying. 1.3. Gertrude Bell. CHAPTER
2.1. John Milton. 2.2. Gautama Buddha. 2.3. Dhammapala. 2.4. Augustine of
Hippo. 2.5. Ali ibn Abi Talib. 2.6. Muhammad. 2.7. Jalaluddin Rumi. 2.8.
Francis Bacon. CHAPTER 3.1. Michel de Montaigne. 3.2. Paul Gleason. 3.3.
Chinese saying. CHAPTER 4.1. Sivananda Saraswati. 4.2. Yoruba saying. 4.3.
Teresa of Avila. CHAPTER 5.1. Abraham Lincoln. 5.2. Kay Ryan. 5.3.
Epictetus. 5.4. The Book of Ecclesiastes.

186
son. 5The waiting time is the hard-
est time of all. 6Sometimes the hour
of fulfillment is buried in years.
7Trees that are slow to grow bear
the best fruit.
pushing their way through solid
boulders in the fields. It was as if
they could find what they needed
to live in the heart center of a rock.
6Who can be patient in ex-

tremes? 7It is hard! But what can-

6 There is a way that nature

speaks, that land speaks. Most
of the time we are simply not pa-
not be removed, becomes lighter
through patience.

tient enough, quiet enough, to pay

attention to the story.
2Adopt the pace of nature.
3Great is the advantage. 4Every-
thing that slows us down and forces
patience, everything that sets us back
into the slow circles of nature, is a
help.
8 See if you can catch yourself
complaining in either speech
or thought, about a situation you
find yourself in, what other people
do or say, your surroundings, your
life situation, even the weather. To
complain is always nonacceptance
of what is. When you complain,
you make yourself a victim. 2Who

7 Patience is not passive; on the

contrary, it is active; it is con-
centrated strength. 2It can’t be
are you expecting to rescue you?
3Leave the situation or accept it.

All else is madness. 4Even if you

acquired overnight. It is just like lose all you have or suffer ex-
building up a muscle. Every day we tremely in the spirit, be patient: a
need to work on it. hundred divine graces are coming.
3We cannot learn real patience

and tolerance from a teacher or a

friend. They can be practiced only
when we come in contact with un-
9 Patience is the art of caring
slowly. 2It is passion tamed.
3It is about waiting, tolerating, and

pleasant experiences—4pains, loss- forgiving.

es and disappointments; but let us 4Have patience with all things,

have patience, and we soon shall but chiefly have patience with
see them in their proper figures. yourself. 5How are we to be patient
5I wondered at those trees with our partner’s, our children’s,

CHAPTER 5.5. Sarah Doudney. 5.6. Mary Oliver. 5.7. Molière. CHAPTER 6.1.
Linda Hogan. 6.2. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 6.3. John Tillotson. 6.4. May Sar-
ton. CHAPTER 7.1. Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton. 7.2. Eknath Easwaran. 7.3.
The XIVth Dalai Lama. 7.4. Joseph Addison. 7.5. Lukus van Witsen Franck.
7.6. William Shakespeare. 7.7. Horace. CHAPTER 8.1. Eckhart Tolle. 8.2. J. M.
Coetzee. 8.3. Eckhart Tolle. 8.4. Sultan Valad. CHAPTER 9.1. John Ciardi.
9.2. Lyman Abbott. 9.3. Don Jackobs. 9.4. Francis de Sales. 9.5. Francis de Sales.

187
our friends’, and our neighbors’
faults if we are impatient in dealing
with our own?
10 Patience is power; with
time and patience the
mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
6Learn to live in the present 2The drop of water wears away the

and accept yourself for what you stone.

are now. 7Acceptance of all of who 3But there are times when pa-

you are is necessary. 8Everything
that you are—each strand of hair,
how you sit, how you talk and pro-
nounce your words—is so impor-
tant, because that is you.
9Face your deficiencies and
acknowledge them; but do not let
them master you. Let them teach
you patience. When we do the best
we can, we never know what mira-
tience proves at fault. 4It has its
limits. Take it too far, and it’s cow-
ardice. 5Or laziness. 6You have to
wait without impatience for what
should come, and yet at the same
time do everything within your pow-
er as though you were impatient
and as though you were solely re-
sponsible.
7Learn to labor, and to wait.

cle is wrought in our life, or in the

life of another.

CHAPTER 9.6. Bruce Lee. 9.7. Esther Yazzie. 9.8. Esther Yazzie. 9.9. Helen
Keller. CHAPTER 10.1. Chinese saying. 10.2. Harriet Doerr. 10.3. Robert
Browning. 10.4. George Jackson. 10.5. Samuel Johnson. 10.6. Rodney Collin.
10.7. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

188
 T here are places in this world that aren’t made out of
stone. There’s something inside that they can’t get to,
that they can’t touch. That’s yours. Hope.
2Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing.

Hope can drive a person insane. 3I cannot begin to describe the cost of main-
taining it in spite of everything. 4Yet, although wrongs have been done me, I
live in hope. I have not got two hearts.

1. Frank Darabont. 2. Frank Darabont. 3. Andrew Papke. 4. Black Kettle

(Moke-ta-ve-to).

189
 H O P E I S

T H E T H I N G W I T H F E A T H E R S

1 Hope is the thing with feath-

ers that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune—without the
words, and never stops at all.
2If we keep a green bough in
invest in enterprises that are obvi-
ously heading for success, but rather
an ability to work for something be-
cause it is good.
2Hope is definitely not the same

our heart, the singing bird will
come. 3If we listen attentively, we
shall hear amid the uproar of
empires and nations, the faint
flutter of wings, the gentle stir-
ring of life and hope. Some will
say that this hope lies in a nation;
thing as optimism. It is not the con-
viction that something will turn out
well, but the certainty that something
makes sense, regardless of how it
turns out. 3It’s simply a choice to
take action.
4Even if the hopes you started

others in a person. I believe rath-
er that it is awakened, revived,
nourished by millions of solitary
individuals whose deeds and works
every day negate frontiers and the
crudest implications of history.
As a result, there shines forth
fleetingly the ever-threatened truth
that each and every person, on the
foundation of his or her own suf-
ferings and joys, builds for all.
4I never lose hope.
out with are dashed, hope has to be
maintained. 5While there’s life, there’s
hope. 6Violets bloom beneath the
snow.
3 The very least you can do in
your life is to figure out what
you hope for. And the most you can
do is live inside that hope. 2Rejoice
in it. 3To eat bread without hope is
still slowly to starve to death.
4What keeps us alive, what al-

lows us to endure? It is the hope of

2 Hope is a state of mind, not

of the world. Hope, in its
most deep and powerful sense, is
loving, or being loved.
5Sometime in your life, hope

that you might see one starved man,

not the same as joy that things the look on his face when the bread
are going well, or willingness to finally arrives. Hope that you might

CHAPTER 1.1. Emily Dickinson. 1.2. Chinese saying. 1.3. Albert Camus. 1.4.
Naim Ateek. CHAPTER 2.1. Václav Havel. 2.2. Václav Havel. 2.3. Anna
Lappe. 2.4. Seamus Heaney. 2.5. Marcus Tullius Cicero. 2.6. Julia Dorr.
CHAPTER 3.1. Barbara Kingsolver. 3.2. Paul the Apostle. 3.3. Pearl Buck. 3.4.
Meister Eckhart. 3.5. Daniel Berrigan.

190
have baked it or bought or even 7You can’t fix every problem, but
kneaded it yourself. For that look what you can fix, you must. 8Noth-
on his face, for your meeting his ing will work unless you do.
eyes across a piece of bread, you 9You wait and watch and work:

might be willing to lose a lot, or you don’t give up. 10Stand up for an
suffer a lot, or die a little, even. ideal, or act to improve the lot of
others, or strike out against injustice.

4 Hope begins in the dark, the

stubborn hope that if you
just show up and try to do the
11Do all the good you can, by all the

means you can, in all the ways you

can, in all the places you can, at all
right thing, the dawn will come. the times you can, to all the people
2You have to do the right thing. you can, as long as ever you can.
3Cowardice asks the question: is 12You have not done enough, you

it safe? Expediency asks the ques-
tion: is it politic? Vanity asks the
question: is it popular? But con-
science asks the question: is it
right? 4The time is always right to
do right. 5You cannot make your-
self feel something you do not
have never done enough, so long as
it is still possible that you have
something to contribute.
5
morn.
Let the evening come. 2There
never was night that had no

feel, but you can make yourself 3Run toward the dawn. Run out

do right in spite of your feelings. as far as you can. 4All shall be well
6Start where you are. Use and all shall be well and all manner
what you have. Do what you can. of things shall be well.

CHAPTER 4.1. Anne Lamott. 4.2. Mahatma Gandhi. 4.3. Martin Luther King,
Jr. 4.4. Nelson Mandela. 4.5. Pearl Buck. 4.6. Arthur Ashe. 4.7. Bono. 4.8.
Maya Angelou. 4.9. Anne Lamott. 4.10. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 4.11. John
Wesley. 4.12. Dag Hammarskjöld. CHAPTER 5.1. Alan Lightman. 5.2. Dinah
Mulock Craik. 5.3. Sinyella. 5.4. Julian of Norwich.

191
 A voice speaks out of my ear: You are not going to die.
2The truth is, I can never die. For I will be in

everything and see you in everything and watch over

you. 3Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a spring
branch, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself
in a stone. I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I
am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. 4I am a bringer of
light; one who stands in a doorway flooded by sun; someone who learns, in
shadow, the real shape of brightness. 5Or I am a verb, an adjective. 6A
handful of smoke over the lost.
7I am here and I am there and I show myself in different shapes. 8My

heart has grown capable of taking on all forms. 9Please call me by my true
names.
10Do you know who I am?

11I am nobody, don’t you see?

12I am the world.
13I am you.

14Letme sink into you. 15An end to lamentation, an end to weeping:

every breath you take now is a hymn.

1. David Ignatow. 2. Klaus Kinski. 3. Thich Nhat Hanh. 4. William Reichard.

5. Polina Barskova. 6. Polina Barskova. 7. Irina Tweedie. 8. Ibn ‘Arabi. 9.
Thich Nhat Hanh. 10. Khaled Hosseini. 11. Khaled Hosseini. 12. Dora Siger-
son Shorter. 13. Josh Kaufman. 14. Barbara Korun. 15. Barbara Korun.

192
 L I F E I S

A N A N G L E O F V I S I O N

1 What is life but the angle of

vision? 2Reality is a question
of perspective. 3Everything we see
is a perspective, not the truth.
4The mystery is our eye. 5We do
not see things as they are. We see
them as we are. 6We only see what
we are prepared to see, 7prepared to
comprehend.
8What we see depends mainly
everything is simple. The rose has
no why attached to it, it blooms
because it blooms, has no thought
of itself, or desire to be seen. What
could be more complicated than a
rose for someone who wants to
understand it? What could be sim-
pler for someone who wants noth-
ing?
4Won’t you come into the gar-

on what we look for. 9Go out look-
ing for one thing, and that’s all
you’ll ever find.
10We take the limits of our own
field of vision for the limits of the
world. (11I shut my eyes and all the
world drops dead; I lift my eyes
and all is born again.) 12No wonder
we are confused by the tiny frac-
tion of a whole that we see. It is,
after all, like trying to comprehend
den? I would like my roses to see
you.
(5Be careful how you interpret
the world: It is like that.)
3 The reverse side also has a
reverse side. 2Every old truth
is half a new lie, every perception
half a deception. It’s all right; be
calm.
3The world is round and the

the panorama of the desert or the place which may seem like the end
sea through a rolled-up newspaper. may also be only the beginning.
4Set out from any point. They are

2 When there’s nothing to see,

look. 2That which is hidden
from you will become plain to you.
all alike. They all lead to a point of
departure. 5It’s all right; be calm.

3Everything is complex and

4 Look at the world with quiet

CHAPTER 1.1. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1.2. Salman Rushdie. 1.3. Marcus Au-
relius. 1.4. Elizabeth Bowen. 1.5. The Talmud. 1.6. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1.7.
Henri Bergson. 1.8. John Lubbock. 1.9. Robert Flaherty. 1.10. Arthur Scho-
penhauer. 1.11. Sylvia Plath. 1.12. Jane Goodall. CHAPTER 2.1. Dakota saying.
2.2. The Gospel of Didymus Judas Thomas. 2.3. André Comte-Sponville. 2.4. Rich-
ard Brinsley Sheridan. 2.5. Erich Heller. CHAPTER 3.1. Japanese saying. 3.2.
Bill Holm. 3.3. Ivy Baker Priest. 3.4. Antonio Porchia. 3.5. Bill Holm. CHAP-
TER 4.1. Howard Thurman.

193
eyes. 2Only in a quiet mind is ade- that there is no end to the new
quate perception of the world. worlds of our vision.
3Learn to see, and then you’ll know

CHAPTER 4.2. Hans Margolius. 4.3. Carlos Castaneda.

194
 I place my hope on the water in this little boat of lan-
guage, the way a body might put an infant in a basket
of intertwined iris leaves, its underside proofed with
bitumen and pitch, then set the whole thing down amidst the sedge and
bulrushes by the edge of a river only to have it borne hither and thither, not
knowing where it might end up.
2Who receives my voice?
3A book is sent out into the world (4which is fuller and more difficult to

learn than I have said), 5and there is no way of fully anticipating the re-
sponses it will elicit. 6I know what I have given you. I do not know what
you have received.
7What grounds me is the certainty that you exist. (8Who are you, who

are you?)
9I am an imperfect messenger. 10Don't believe anything just because I

have said it. Put it into practice. See for yourself if it is true. 11Put it into
practice from the very depth of your heart, 12and if you find that it leads to
a kind of wisdom that is like looking at a wall, and then the wall breaks
open and you see in a much more unbounded way, then you can trust it.
13Look to the mountains and ridgeways and the steep valleys, quilted by

green. Here, as the last words fall away, the great and silent rivers of life are
flowing into the oceans, and on a day like any other they will carry you again
on the currents you have fought, to the place you did not know you belonged.
14Work of the eyes is done, now go and do heart-work. I5And in all your

doings be you blessed.

1. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. 2. Rosa Alice Branco. 3. Chaim Potok. 4. Margaret

Atwood. 5. Chaim Potok. 6. Antonio Porchia. 7. Rosa Alice Branco. 8. Pablo
Neruda. 9. Mark Pederson. 10. Gautama Buddha. 11. Patrul Rinpoche. 12.
Gautama Buddha. 13. David Whyte. 14. Rainer Maria Rilke. 15. Helen Shuc-
man, William Thetford.

195
 T H E E N D

O F T H E W O R L D

1 Wild, dark times are rumbling

toward us. 2The world has
become unrecognizable. 3The Sa-
cred Mountain is falling. The beam
is breaking. The wise are withering
away.
4Affections are leaving the world
like the colors of extinct birds, like
the songs of a dead language. 5Con-
victions concerning human rights,
freedom, and breadth of perspec-
environmental catastrophe. 15There
are savage attacks against innocent
people. By all sides. 16Defenseless
villages are bombarded from the
air.
17Children are blown up. 18Child-
ren are raped. 19Children are made
to kill other children. 20Who will
tell of the dead children on the
trembling sands of history?
21These are real people. They

tives are being jettisoned. 6Politics is have—or rather, they had—hopes,

a mass of lies, evasions, folly, ha-
tred and schizophrenia. 7Whole gen-
erations are falsifying themselves.
8Everything is in question.
9Desires have been loosed in
the air, and there’s no telling where
they’ll light. 10There are wars and
rumors of wars, 11confused alarms
of struggle and flight. 12Masses of
people come and go across a hos-
dreams, fears. People loved them,
and they loved people. 22Only min-
utes ago they were walking down
hallways and writing at desks and
breathing and eating. 23But now
they’re dead. They were in the way.
There wasn’t enough to go around.
They were in the wrong place at
the wrong time.
24All of this beautiful life. Such

tile planet, desolate and violent. a waste.

13There is no end of blood. 14Thou- 25Something essential has es-

sands perish every day in agony caped us. 26The whole earth groans
and sorrow from hunger, pestilen- 27under our boot, 28is blown and

tial disease, war, economic chaos, lost. 29Shards of glass cover the pil-

CHAPTER 1.1. Heinrich Heine. 1.2. Ramón Pascuel Muñoz Soler. 1.3. Con-
fucius. 1.4. Wendell Berry. 1.5. Martin Marty. 1.6. George Orwell. 1.7. José
Ortega y Gasset. 1.8. Michael Gilsenan. 1.9. Greil Marcus. 1.10. Jesus. 1.11.
Matthew Arnold. 1.12. Isabel Allende. 1.13. Nicolai Kobus. 1.14. Robert Wal-
drop. 1.15. Alan Lightman. 1.16. George Orwell. 1.17. Vianney Carriere. 1.18.
Susan J. Hekman. 1.19. United Nations Global Atlas of Human Rights. 1.20. Sylva
Fischerová. 1.21. Robert Waldrop. 1.22. Alan Lightman. 1.23. Robert Wal-
drop. 1.24. Alan Lightman. 1.25. Ramón Pascuel Muñoz Soler. 1.26. Paul the
Apostle. 1.27. Richard S. Gilbert. 1.28. Glyn Maxwell. 1.29. Lyubomir Nikolov.

196
low. 30The light goes out of the in fire, some say in ice. 2But I have
days. a dream. 3This is the way the world
ends:

2 What has humanity come to?

2My heart is moved by all I

cannot save: So much has been

4The world will end in joy.
5The world will end in peace. 6The

world will end in laughter.

destroyed. 3Every holy promise has 7I am unwilling to believe that

been broken. 4The survival of the this whole civilization is no more

human species can no longer be
taken for granted.
5These are the times that try
our souls.
6The crisis is upon us. 7We are
confronted with the fierce urgency
of now. In this unfolding conun-
than a blind alley of history and a
fatal error of the human spirit.
More probably it represents a nec-
essary phase that humanity must
go through, one that we—if we
survive—will ultimately transcend.
8Humanity is just a work in pro-

drum of life and history, there is gress.

such a thing as being too late. This
is not a time for apathy or compla-
cency. This is a time for vigorous
and positive action. 8Something
4 The world is entangled in a
knot. Who can untangle the
tangle?
indeed has to happen in people’s 2These are the times and we

minds in order for the world not to
end with a terrible crash.
9The hour is late but, perhaps,
not too late.
10Do not lose heart, we were
made for these times. 11These are
the times to grow our souls.
are the people. 3We are the ones
we’ve been waiting for. 4We, and
our children, need the chance to
walk the sacred earth, this final
abiding place of all that lives. 5The
faces of our future generations are
looking up to us from the earth,
and we step with great care not to

3 Some say the world will end disturb our grandchildren.

CHAPTER 1.30. Jan Gardner. CHAPTER 2.1. Georg Feurstein. 2.2. Adrienne
Rich. 2.3. Judy Collins. 2.4. Joseph Rotblat. 2.5. Thomas Paine. 2.6. Winston
Churchill. 2.7. Martin Luther King, Jr. 2.8. Václav Havel. 2.9. Ervin Laszlo.
2.10. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. 2.11. Grace Lee Boggs. CHAPTER 3.1. Robert
Frost. 3.2. Martin Luther King, Jr. 3.3. T. S. Eliot. 3.4. Helen Shucman, Wil-
liam Thetford. 3.5. Helen Shucman, William Thetford. 3.6. Helen Shucman,
William Thetford. 3.7. Václav Havel. 3.8. Tennessee Williams. CHAPTER 4.1.
Buddhagosha. 4.2. Jean Houston. 4.3. Elders of the Hopi Nation. 4.4. N.
Scott Momaday. 4.5. Traditional Circle of Elders.

197
 6We cannot withdraw from the
world, nor can we hide. 7Each of
us has been put here in this time and
this place to personally decide the
future of humankind. 8We are here
5 It’s going to be harder before
it’s going to get better. 2See
that you are not troubled. 3Morn-
ing awaits at the end of the world.
4Look at the Darkness, giving birth

to transform the world. 9Our des- to the Sun. 5In the morning, look,
tiny is to go on beyond everything, it’s a beautiful day.
to leave everything, to press for- 6Let there be light.

ward to the End and find in the

End our Beginning, the ever-new
Beginning that has no End.
10The revolution begins now.
6 Dare to live for the impossi-
ble. 2Turn away from the a-
postles of bitterness and bigotry.
11We have to save each other. It's 3In the name of the best within

the only way to save ourselves.
12This is our task, we know it will
be hard. 13But we can do it. 14You
see, we have power. 15Power to be-
gin the world over again, 16power
to create the world anew. 17An-
other world is not only possible,
she is on her way. On a quiet day, I
can hear her breathing.
18We must do something. 19May-
you, do not sacrifice this world to
those who are its worst. In the
name of the values that keep you
alive, do not let your vision of hu-
manity be distorted by the ugly,
the cowardly, the mindless. The
world you desired can be won, it
exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s
yours.
4Combine a tough mind and a

be the things we work on today tender heart. 5Always believe in the

won’t bring about changes for
years. But it’s important that we
do them. 20Raise everything that is
profane to the level of the holy.
21Sanctify the place you are in.
22Still time. Still time to change.
23All of us. Trying. Forever.
final victory of righteousness over
barbarity, of justice over evil, of
human love over animalistic in-
stinct. 6Speak truth to power. Give
a voice to suffering, to that which
lives and breathes. Give a voice to
warning.

CHAPTER 4.6. Bill Clinton. 4.7. Arvol Looking Horse. 4.8. Marianne William-
son. 4.9. Thomas Merton. 4.10. Fidel Castro. 4.11. Eboo Patel. 4.12. Attila
József. 4.13. Barbara Jordan. 4.14. Marie Chona. 4.15. Thomas Paine. 4.16.
Grace Lee Boggs. 4.17. Suzanna Arundhati Roy. 4.18. Jacques Chirac. 4.19.
Virginia Ramirez. 4.20. Martin Buber. 4.21. Joseph Campbell. 4.22. Mark
Doty. 4.23. Jennifer Michael Hecht. CHAPTER 5.1. Nilak Butler. 5.2. Jesus.
5.3. Rudyard Kipling. 5.4. Kahlil Gibran. 5.5. Rui Pires Cabral. 5.6. The Book of
Genesis. CHAPTER 6.1. Muriel Rukeyser. 6.2. Bill Clinton. 6.3. Ayn Rand. 6.4.
Martin Luther King, Jr. 6.5. Tran Manh Quynh. 6.6. Randolph Ouimet.

198
 7You are a miracle, and you
blaze.
7 This is how it will be at the
end of the world:
2Violence shall no more be
heard in any land, devastation or
destruction within any borders. The
sun shall no more go down, nor the
moon withdraw itself. All days of
mourning shall be ended.
8 Then all that has divided us
will merge,
And then compassion will be
wedded to power,
And then softness will come to
a world that is harsh and unkind,
And then both men and wom-
en will be gentle,
And then both women and
men will be strong,
And then no person will be
subject to another’s will,
And then all will be rich and
free and varied,
And then the greed of some
will give way to the needs of many,
And then all will share equally
in the earth’s abundance,
And then all will care for the
sick and the weak and the old,
And then all will nourish the
young,
And then all will cherish life’s
CHAPTER 6.7. Pablo Neruda. CHAPTER 7.1. Jesus. 7.2. The Book of Isaiah.
CHAPTER 8. Judy Chicago. CHAPTER 9.1. Jesus. 9.2. Alan Alda. 9.3. Winston
Churchill. 9.4. Åsne Seierstad. 9.5. Denizé Lauture. 9.6. Georges Bernanos.
9.7. Avraham Soetendorf. 9.8. Rhena Schweitzer Miller. 9.9. Wangari Maathai.
199
creatures,
And then all will live in har-
mony with each other and with the
earth.
9 So shall it be at the end of
the world. 2Is there anything
more beautiful than that? Is there
anything greater to sing about? So
sing. Sing out.
3We have to win that world
for our children. We have to win
it by our sacrifices. 4Are you pre-
pared?
5Answer. Are you present? Ab-
sent? Alive? Dead? Weeping in
solitude?
6Are you capable of rejuvenat-
ing the world, yes or no?
7Time is a gift, if we learn to
sanctify it. Whatever was not pos-
sible up to now is possible. 8I don’t
know how we can surmount the
barbarism which seems to get
more and more threatening. But
certainly being in awe of the won-
der of life in all its forms and
teaching our children to respect it
in all its manifestations, helping
them to see the beauty of our
planet Earth and its inhabitants,
can set them on the way toward
the creation of a more peaceful and
harmonious world.
9We are in the company of
many others throughout the world
who care deeply for this blue
planet. 10The living call out to one
another as if from faraway ships.
11We have nowhere else to go.
all life in its variety, honor the soul
in all its mystery, and build a new
world.

Those of us who witness the suf-

fering cannot afford to be compla-
cent.
12I have seen the ones who do
not give up. 13They leave in the fu-
rious winds a tenuous track of
unmistakable perfume; every day,
10 I am the singer. I have sung
the Earth, and I have sung
your lost dreaming. 2Now every-
thing is new. 3It is time for you to
raise your voice. 4If we are to sur-
vive as humans, it is crucial that you
learn once again to sing.
5The singing will never be

fighting the most crucial battles, done.

the only noble ones, within; going
astray, losing their way and starting
anew; knowing that all is still to be
done, has to be done by everyone,
11 Here and now we have
entered the mystery.
2Now it begins to be made.

every time; testing their courage in 3Now the green blade rises

the blackness of the darkest night. from buried grain.

14Walk among them. 15Honor

CHAPTER 9.10. Antonella Anedda. 9.11. Wangari Maathai. 9.12. Pedro Aznar.
9.13. Pedro Aznar. 9.14. Paul the Apostle. 9.15. Yehudi Menuhin. CHAPTER
10.1. Kahil Gibran. 10.2. Alan Lightman. 10.3. Smadar Carmon. 10.4. Mary
Evelyn Tucker. 10.5. Siegfried Sassoon. CHAPTER 11.1. Mirabai Bush. 11.2.
Zuni saying. 11.3. Elizabeth Spires.

200
 I have written this book as a gift to the people. 2To all
citizens and all of humanity. 3All of you. If you want it,
fight to keep it, as I have had to fight to deliver it.
4These then are my last words to you. 5My friend, it must be time for

you to speak. 6What I have told you is no secret at all. When you look into
your own true self, whatever is deeper is found right there.
7I have put my heart near your heart. 8Tell me your truth. 9Tell me what

you know.
10I will listen forever.

1. Alice Walker. 2. Mordecai Vanunu. 3. Alice Walker. 4. William James. 5.

Lawrence Raab. 6. Mumonkan. 7. Pope John XXIII. 8. Clary Sage. 9. Ralph
Waldo Emerson. 10. Amy Kareena.

201
 I N D E X O F N A M E S

Aaron, Henry “Hank,” 150 Alighieri, Dante, 76

Abbott, John S. C., 126, 187 al-Khawwas, Ahmad, 154
Abbott, Lyman, 187 Allen, Adela, 117
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 172 Allende, Isabel, 89, 134, 180, 196
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, 179 al-Maeena, Tariq A., 103
Abelard, Peter, 183 al-Musawi, Said Ali, 20, 29
Abiola, Hafsat, 132 Alrafidain, Ibn, 103
Abu-Jamal, Mumia, 45 al-Sheik, Ameen Saeed, 21
Acarangasutra, 120, 121 al-Suhrawardi, Shihab al-Din, 79
Achebe, Chinua, 63 Alting von Geusau, Willem A. M., 8
Ackerman, Diane, 22, 163, 164 Alzate, Ligia Inez, 135
Acts, The Book of, 146 Amanchick, Terry, 137
Adams, Abigail, 60 Ambedkar, Babasaheb, 155
Adams, Ansel, 9, 60 Amichai, Yehuda, 21, 114, 136, 172
Adams, Douglas, 3 Amiel, Henri-Frédéric, 34, 43, 52, 183
Adams, John, 1 Anders, Bill, 3
Addison, Joseph, 187 Anderson, Jessie Allen, 103
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 119 Anderson, Marian, 113, 145
Adi Granth, 31, 63, 78 André, Crisophe, 173
Adler, Felix, 144 Anedda, Antonella, 200
Adler, Frances Payne, 163 Angelou, Maya, 57, 92, 107, 108, 110, 146,
Adler, Josef, 105 153, 162, 167, 171, 191
Adler, Shlomo, 17, 72 Annan, Kofi, 134, 148
Aesop, 95, 163 Anonymous Acehnese, 81
Afkhami, Mahnaz, 130 Anonymous Cherokee man, 182
Agee, James, 148 Anonymous inmate of a federal women’s
Agodon, Kelli Russell, 29 prison, California, U. S. A., 161
Ai, 81 Anonymous Iraqi woman, 66
Aiken, George, 116 Anonymous Iroquois chief, 148
Aitken, Larry P., 32 Anonymous Serbian refugee, 126
Aitken, Robert, 37 Anouilh, Jean, 91, 162
Akers, Mary, 149 Ansari, Anousheh, 3
Akhmatova, Anna, 17, 39, 72 Antin, Mary, 64
al-Adam, Sami, 126 Antipater of Sidon, author’s dedication
Alan, Eric, 25 Antrim, Minna, 73
Alana, Robert, 95 Appleman, Philip, 1
al-Basri, Hassan, 48 Aquino, Corazon, 71, 133
al-Basri, Rabia, 6, 79, 92 ‘Arabi, Ibn, 192
Alcott, Louisa May, 82 Arapi, Lindita, 56
Alda, Alan, 43, 87, 199 Arbo, Gaius, 72
Alexandrovna, Larisa, 8 Arendt, Leah, 35
Alexopoulou, Marigo, 30 Aristotle, 134, 182
al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid, 75, 146 Ariyaratne, A. T., 88
al-Haddad, Abdullah ibn Alawi, 75 Arliss, George, 43
al-Hajj, Sami, author’s dedication, 109 Armstrong, Karen, 19
al-Hallaj, Diwan, 92 Armstrong, Thomas, 149

205
Arnold, Matthew, 196 Batur, Enis, 138
Asante, Molefi Kete, 79 Baudrillard, Jean, 122
Ashbery, John, 48, 70, 72 Baughan, R. J., 172
Ashe, Arthur, 191 Bayda, Ezra, 60, 101
Ashworth, William, 24 Beattie, Melody, 73
Asimov, Isaac, 99 Beckett, Samuel, 31, 42, 169
Assagioli, Robert, 106 Beerbohm, Max, 146
Ata’Allah, Ibn, 27 Behnke, Elizabeth A., 163
Ata’Illah, Ibn, 43 Belieu, Erin, 17
Ateek, Naim, 190 Bell, Gertrude, 186
Atkisson, Alan, 86 Bellamy, Carol, 149
Atlee, Tom, 86 Belo, Carlos Filipe Ximenes, 180
‘Attar, Farid al-Din, 158 Benenson, Peter, 29
Atwood, Margaret, 14, 23, 42, 61, 91, 126, Benét, Stephen Vincent, 70, 128
159, 195 Bengis, Ingrid, 79
Auden, W. H., 24, 32, 154, 162 Benioff, David, with Khaled Hosseini, 81
Augustine of Hippo, 43, 154, 186 Benjamin, Judah Philip, 87
Aurobindo, Sri, 27 Benn, Gottfried, 178
Author Unknown, 2, 42, 54, 81, 106, 115, Bentham, Jeremy, 27
119, 132 Berger, John, 134
Aznar, Pedro, 200 Bergman, Ingrid, 8
Bergson, Henri, 87, 193
Bernanos, Georges, 59, 64, 148, 199
Baba, Sri Sathya Sai, 100 Berrigan, Daniel, 132, 190
Bachelard, Gaston, 42 Berry, Thomas, 23
Bachelet, Michelle, 112 Berry, Wendell, 2, 6, 9, 14, 23, 26, 31, 68,
Bacon, Francis, 186 86, 103, 108, 119, 133, 154, 158, 165,
Bacon, Josephine Dodge, 68 196
Baez, Joan, 68, 139 Berryman, John, 38
Bailey, Pearl, 184 Beskrone, Jeanne, 81
Bailie, Gil, 120 Beston, Henry, 25
Bakker, Theresa, 112 Bhagavad Gita, 133, 146, 181
Bakunin, Mikhail, 149 Bharati, Jnaneshvara, 92
Balagha, Nahjul, 67, 183 Bica, Camillo, 98, 141
Baldini, Raffaello, 115 Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa), 15, 132, 133
Baldwin, Faith, 35 Black Kettle (Moke-ta-ve-to), 189
Baldwin, James, 8, 18, 34, 87, 92, 113, 117, Blair, Tony, 155
146, 162, 181 Blake, Eubie, 74
Baldwin, Stanley, 126 Blake, William, 31, 52, 163
Ballard, Edna, 106 Blum, William, 123
Ballou, Hosea, 113 Bly, Robert, 92, 102, 126
Bambara, Toni Cade, 86 Bodhidharma, 9
Banks, Dennis, 34 Boff, Leonardo, 93
Banks, Russell, 89 Bogan, Louise, 172
Barden, Dan, 90 Boggs, Grace Lee, 86, 197, 198
Barnwell, Asaya, 148 Bolen, Jean Shinoda, 82
Barrett, Rona, 153 Bonder, Rabino Nilton, 43
Barrie, J. M., 43, 68, 164, 172 Bondevik, Kjell Magne, 122
Barskova, Polina, 84, 192 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 101
Bashō, Matsuo, 37, 38, 40, 183 Bono, 135, 191
Batchelor, Stephen, 61 Boonyaratkalin, Sondhi, 135
206
Boorstein, Sylvia, 75 Burns, Robert, 42
Borge, Victor, 175, 176 Burr, Amelia, 102
Borges, Jorge Luis, 19 Burton, Henry, 146
Borromeo, Cecilia, 125 Buscaglia, Leo F., 172
Borysenko, Joan, 107 Bush, Mirabai, 200
Boschult, Clark, 83 Butler, Nilak, 198
Boulding, Elise, 135 Butt, Riazat, 13
Bovee, Christian Nestell, 116 Byalick, Marcia, 57
Bowen, Elizabeth, 193 Byron, Lord, 113
Bowker, John, 67
Bozdechová, Ivana, 159
Bradbury, Ray, 52 Cabral, Rui Pires, 12, 45, 198
Bradley, Omar, 128 Cadon, Robert, 14
Brampton, Sally, 39 Cameron, Julia, 161
Branco, Rosa Alice, 39, 61, 63, 158, 195 Campbell, Joseph, 3, 41, 64, 155, 173, 198
Brave Bird, Mary, 22 Camus, Albert, 48, 90, 128, 132, 190
Breathnach, Sarah Ban, 74, 167 Cantrell, Jane, with Sally Lawton and Jane
Brecht, Bertolt, 18, 68, 153 Harris, 88
Briedis, Ronalds, 102, 184 Caplin, Ralph, 145
Brigitte, Willie, 13 Capocchione, Lucia, 178
Bristol, Goldie, 108 Card, Orson Scott, 103
Brkovic, Balsa, 137 Carey, Mariah, 2
Bronaugh, Anne, 60 Carlton, Steve, 42
Brooks, Gwendolyn, 2, 45, 70, 95, 148, 153 Carmon, Smadar, 200
Brower, David, 36 Carriere, Vianney, 196
Brown, H. Rap, 87 Carroll, Charlotte, 72
Brown, Rita Mae, 79, 92 Carse, James, 178
Brown, Susan, 162 Carson, Rachel, 22, 24, 150
Browne, Thomas, 168 Carter, Jimmy, 182
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 51 Carter, Rosalynn, 58, 144
Browning, Robert, 101, 188 Carter-Scott, Cherie, 107
Bruteau, Beatrice, 100 Carver, George Washington, 113, 181
Bryce, James, 98 Carver, Raymond, 119, 185
Bryson, Ellen, 180 Casals, Pablo, 98, 149
Buber, Martin, 15, 64, 178, 198 Casta, Laetitia, 167
Buck, Pearl, 181, 190, 191 Castaneda, Carlos, 194
Buddha, Gautama, 9, 10, 11, 14, 40, 46, 50, Castro, Fidel, 45, 198
51, 67, 78, 83, 94, 98, 114, 146, 162, Catches, Pete, 15
163, 164, 176, 181, 183, 186, 195 Cather, Willa, 50
Buddhagosha, 197 Catherine of Siena, 22
Buechner, Frederick, 51, 95, 100, 106, 144, Causley, Charles, 97
173 Cavell, Edith, 98
Buffett, Jimmy, 176 Cerf, Bennett Alfred, 176
Bukovsky, Vladimir, 29, 53 Chah, Ajahn, 111, 183
Bukowski, Charles, 70, 112, 151, 153 Chalmers, Thomas, 157
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G. 187 Chamfort, Nicolas, 175
Bunche, Ralph Johnson, 134 Chaneles, Sol, 117
Bunim, Simhah, 43 Channing, William Ellery, 60
Burgess, Anthony, 84 Chapin, E. H., 108
Burke, Edmund, 95, 139 Chapin, Harry, 96, 182
Burnham, Lester, 167 Chase, Stuart, 99
207
Chávez, César, 140, 153, 182 Conlon, James, 180
Chavis, Donna, 4 Connolly, Cyril, 113, 171
Chekhov, Anton, 23, 25, 83, 133 Conseta, Rafael López Santíz, 20
Chendid, Mostafa, 1 Cooper, Anderson, 89
Cheng Yen, 159 Cooper, Anna Julia, 155
Chevien, Matthew, 81 Cooper, Betty, 162
Chicago, Judy, 199 Cope, Wendy, 125
Chief, Dave, 152 Corapi, John, 109
Child, Lydia M., 7 Core-Starke, Candea, 163
Childre, Doc, with Howard Martin, 106 Cosby, Bill, 176
Chinmoy, Sri, 46, 168, 172 Cotter, Jr., Joseph Seamon, 181
Chio-san, 158 Cousineau, Phil, 166
Chirac, Jacques, 122, 198 Cousins, Norman, 129
Chittister, Joan, 37, 92, 127, 142 Cousteau, Jacques, 24
Chödrön, Pema, 48, 61, 76, 94, 163 Cox, Harvey, 85
Chodron, Thubten, 103 Craik, Dinah Mulock, 14, 48, 183, 191
Chomsky, Noam, 123 Crisp, Steven, 42, 104
Chona, Marie, 198 Crosby, Philip, 18
Chopra, Deepak, 122 Cruso, Thalassa, 25
Chorn-Pond, Arn, 147 Cucchi, Maurizio, 14
Christiansen, Drew, 6 Cullis-Suzuki, Severn
Christie, Agatha, 129 cummings, e. e., 34, 41, 70, 108, 176
Chuang-tzu, 6, 68 Cummings, Michael J., 155
Churchill, Jennie Jerome, 173 Curie, Marie, 54
Churchill, Winston, 11, 38, 197, 199
Ciardi, John, 187
Clark, James, 9 Dacey, Philip, 68
Clark, Stephen L., 26 Dagan, Melba, 6
Clarkson, Linda, with Vern Morrissette Dalai Lama, The XIVth, 4, 28, 91, 93, 94,
and Gabriel Régallet, 148 96, 103, 121, 129, 133, 155, 168, 187
Clay, Henry, 98 Daly, Mary, 87
Cleaver, Eldridge, 113 Danforth, William H., 146
Clinton, Bill, 8, 80, 116, 117, 132, 133, 134, D’Angelo Anthony J., 87
136, 137, 148, 149, 198 Dangle, Arjun, 72
Cobb, Chad Christopher, 184 Danticat, Edwidge, 5
Cocteau, Jean, 51 Darabont, Frank, 29, 39, 42, 109, 189
Coelho, Paulo, 48 D’Arcy, Paula, 35
Coetzee, J. M., 8, 27, 42, 105, 138, 147, Darwin, Charles, 14, 27
152, 174, 187 Dass, Ram, 37, 63, 78, 94, 95
Coghill, James, 152 da Vinci, Leonardo, 14, 158, 168
Cohen, Alan, 87 Davis, Angela, 87
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 95 Davis, Earon, 152
Coles, Abraham, 116 Davis, Maggie Steincrohn, 169
Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle, 176 Day, Dorothy, 86, 117
Collin, Rodney, 188 Dean, Jerome Hanna “Dizzy”, 10
Collins, Judy, 81, 197 De Angelis, Barbara, 107
Coltart, David, 49 Dear, John, 139, 140
Comenius, John, 32 de Beauvoir, Simone, 156
Comte-Sponville, André, 193 Debs, Eugene V., 144
Cone, James, 9 Dee, Ruby, 162
Confucius, 38, 75, 78, 106, 158, 196 Delecto, Ymber, 14
208
de Lenclos, Anne Ninon, 172 Durant, Will, 128
de Maupassant, Guy, 126 Duse, Eleanora, 184
Deming, Barbara, 134 Dyer, Wayne, 101
Democritus, 98 Dylan, Bob, 1
Dennison, Sean Parker, 167
de Paul, Vincent, 43
Desai, Narayan, 141 Eastman, Charles A. (Ohiyesa), 158, 169
de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, 24, 75, 164, Eastwood, Clint, 116
173 Easwaran, Eknath, 187
de Sales, Francis, 108, 187 Ecclesiastes, The Book of, 182, 186
Descartes, René, 9 Echols, Clint, 84
Deshimaru, Taisen, 163 Eckhart, Meister, 9, 14, 181, 190
Dessen, Sarah, 12 Eco, Umberto, 176
de Vere, Aubrey, 116 Edelman, Marian Wright, 86, 88, 149, 152,
Devi, Mata Amritanandamayi, 91, 92, 94, 182
181 Einstein, Albert, 14, 22, 31, 52, 82, 135,
Dewey, John, 155 145, 159, 178; with Bertrand Russell,
Dhammapala, 186 128
Dhammavadaka, 38, 43, 79, 10, 1691 Eisenhower, Dwight David, 126, 129, 133
Dhomhnaill, Nuala Ní, 195 Elders of the Hopi Nation, 197
Dick, Phillip K., 6 Elgin, Duane, 159
Dickinson, Emily, 1, 31, 67, 82, 166, 167, Eliot, Alexander, 37
172, 190 Eliot, George, 113, 153
Didymus Judas Thomas, The Gospel of, 193 Eliot, T. S., 38, 54, 58, 197
DiFranco, Ani, 118 Ellerbee, Linda, 176
Digha Nikaya, 9 Ellison, Ralph, 8, 34
Dillard, Annie, 51, 57 Elworthy, Scilla, 86, 87, 129
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 79 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 57, 111, 137, 149,
Diop, Birago, 72 167, 168, 178, 187, 193, 201
di Santo, Richard, 115 Emoto, Masuru, 24
Disraeli, Benjamin, 51 Epelbaum, Reneé, 103
Djørup, Adda, 106 Epictetus, 186
Dodge, Mary Mapes, 51 Erasmus, Desiderius, 54, 79, 126
Doerr, Harriet, 67, 91, 188 Erdrich, Louise, 26, 60
Dorr, Julia, 190 Esquivel, Adolfo Peréz, 139
Dorsey, George, 178 Estés, Clarissa Pinkola, 107, 169, 197
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 6, 25, 27, 175 Euripedes, 35, 101, 183
Doty, Mark, 198 Evahema, Dan, 23, 89
Doudney, Sarah, 187 Evans, Augusta, 76
Douglass, Frederick, 156 Evans, Lynda, 94
Dove, Rita, 82
Doyle, Mark, 49
Drawert, Kurt, 30 Fahs, Sophia Lyon, 10
Dreamsong, 22 Farina, Dennis, 42
Drucker, Peter F., 142 Farley, Ronnie, 39
D’Souza, Alfred, 60 Fatayi-Williams, Marie, 122
DuBois, W. E. B., 48 Faulkner, William, 57, 61, 156
Dubos, René, 117 Fénelon, François, 136
Duke, David, 122 Ferguson, Marilyn, 40
Dulles, John Foster, 133 Ferlinghetti, Lawrence, 15
Dunn, Stephen, 1 Fernandez, Michael, 29
209
Ferré, Frederick, 158 117, 121, 132, 134, 135, 139, 141, 142,
Feurstein, Georg, 197 176, 181, 191
Feynman, Richard, 9, 82 Ganjavi, Nezami-ye, 65
Field, Edward, 37, 38, 137 Garcia, Ed, 45
Fierstein, Harvey, 34 Gardner, John William, 110, 197
Fischerová, Sylva, 138, 196 Gauguin, Paul, 82
Fiske, Minnie, 111 Gawain, Shakti, 75, 163
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 63 Geçimli, Gülsüm, 115
Flaherty, Robert, 193 Gellner, Ernest, 40
Flint, Annie Johnson, 63 Genesis, The Book of, 198
Fo, Dario, 87 Genoux, Claire, 66
Fools Crow, Frank, 154 Gensei, 158
Ford, Jack, 1 Gentry, Laura, 15
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 127 George, Dan (Geswanouth Slahoot), 26
Fowles, John, 2 Geronimo (Goyathlay), 115
France, Anatole, 157 Gerould, Katherine F., 160
Francis of Assisi, 27, 104, 182 Gersonides, 132
Franck, Frederick, 10, 30, 31, 59, 64, 70, Giamatti, Bartlett, 122
77, 86, 89, 109, 118, 139, 183 Gibbon, Edward, 6
Franck, Lukus van Witsen, 187 Gibran, Kahlil, 14, 100, 146, 149, 150, 173,
François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 34 181, 198, 200
Frank, Anne, 32, 34, 88, 176 Gide, André, 6, 9, 146
Frank, Arthur, 1 Gilbert, Richard S. 196
Frank, Niels, 34, 83 Gillan, Audrey, 29
Franken, Al, 1 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 67, 93
Frankl, Victor, 40, 64, 155 Gilpin, Laura, 36
Franklin, Benjamin, 110 Gilsenan, Michael, 196
Frederick the Great, 116 Ginsberg, Allen, 5
Freeman, Morgan, 38 Giocondo, Giovanni, 172
Freilich, Jonathan, 45 Giovanni, Nikki, 58, 110, 111
Freilich, Klara, 119 Giraudoux, Jean, 36
Freire, Paolo, 121 Giri, Ananta Kumar, 103
Frezghi, Abenezer, 81 Gitter, Lena, 117
Frieden, 72 Gladstone, William, 133
Friedman, Pavel, 39 Glassman, Bernie, 95
Friend, Robert, 90, 102 Gleason, Paul, 186
Frolov, Diane, with Andrew Schneider, 115 Glendinning, Chellis, 98
Fromm, Erich, 58, 98 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 18, 58, 75,
Frost, Robert, 6, 22, 63, 68, 69, 197 85, 92, 96, 162, 167, 175
Frostenson, Katarina, 157 Goldberg, Natalie, 94, 108
Fuchs, Bernie, 181 Goldsmith, Boris, 72
Fudim, Libbie, 143 Goldsmith, Oliver, 115
Fuller, R. Buckminster, 31, 86, 120, 129 Goodall, Jane, 86, 144, 193
Fuller, Thomas, 67 Goodwin, Jim, 182
Goos-Mayr, Hildegard, 141
Gopher, Mary, 15
Gabo, Naum, 147 Gordimer, Nadine, 84, 94, 103, 137
Gaines, Ernest J., 9, 95, 181 Gordon, Ruth, 57
Galileo Galilei, 3, 93 Göring, Hermann, 127
Gandhi, Arun, 132, 140 Goss, Jean, 140
Gandhi, Mahatma, 9, 34, 91, 95, 103, 105, Gracian, Baltasar, 79
210
Graham, Martha, 162, 163 Heidegger, Martin, 75, 85
Gramsci, Antonio, 29, 109 Heine, Heinrich, 158, 196
Grason, Sandy, 42 Heisig, James, 158
Grass, Günther, 125 Hekman, Susan J. 196
Greeley, Horace, 68, 145 Heller, Erich, 193
Greider, William, 27 Hellman, Martin E., 113
Griffin, Susan, 28, 82 Hemingway, Ernest, 42
Griffiths, Bede, 21, 90 Hendrix, Jimi, 133
Grossbard, Meg, 66 Hepburn, Audrey, 148
Gruen, Arno, 113 Heraclitus, 18
Grumbaugh, Doris, 68 Herbert, Frank, 59
Guerra, Anna Marie Mae R., 73 Herbert, George, 168
Guthrie, Arlo, 117 Hermes Trismegistus, 6
Hernández, David Hernández, 17
Hershey, Marianne Radmacher, 57, 179
Habibi, Anne Marie Elderkin, 129 Heschel, Abraham, 164
Hafiz, 44, 93, 172 Hesiod, 182
Haief, Um, 162 Hesse, Hermann, 91, 113
Haig-Brown, Roderick, 36 Heyward, Carter, 91
Halbert, Sam, 153 Heyzer, Noreleen, 132
Haldane, J. B. S., 14 Hicks, Cliff, 126
Hall, Donald, 67 Higgins, Anne, 109
Hammad, Suheir, 171 High Eagle, 82
Hammarskjöld, Dag, 41, 43, 132, 191 Hill, Julia Butterfly, 78
Hampton, Fred, 87 Hill, Selima, 82
Hanh, Thich Nhat, 9, 3, 40, 41, 50, 54, 85, Hindus, Milton, 92
93, 123, 128, 140, 154, 164, 192 Hippocrates, 14, 162
Hansberry, Lorraine, 168 Hlatky, Stefan, 6
Hanson, Holly, 45 Hoagland, Tony, 30
Harada, Tomin, 126 Hobday, José, 159
Hare, Augustus William, with Julius Char- Hockney, David, 178
les Hare, 164 Hoffa, Jimmy, 39
Hare, Julius Charles, with Augustus Wil- Hoffer, Eric, 19, 60, 67, 96, 100, 101
liam Hare, 164 Hofmann, Hans, 160
Harris, Jane, with Sally Lawton and Jane Hogan, Linda, 24, 187
Cantrell, 88 Holler, Silken, 88
Harris, Jean, 49 Holley, Marietta, 60
Hart, Ken, 107 Hollister, Juliet, 37
Harty, Maura, 45 Holm, Bill, 193
Hassan, Ihab, 52 Holm, Jennifer L., 180
Hathaway, Katherine Butler, 87 Holmes, Andrew J., 43
Havel, Václav, 11, 37, 174, 190, 197 Holmes, Ernest, 48
Hawken, Paul, 18 Holt, John, 149
Hawking, Steven W., 3, 176 Holt-Orsted, Sheila, 137
Hawkins, David R., 91, 93, 139 Homer, 182
Hayder, Afzal, 45 hooks, bell, 152
Hayek, Salma, 167 Hope, Bob, 176
Hazlitt, William, 116 Hope-Scott, James Robert, 2
Heaney, Seamus, 37, 38, 190 Horace, 187
Hebrews, The Book of, 154 Horban, Donald, 158
Hecht, Jennifer Michael, 198 Horning, Jim, 159
211
Hosseini, Khaled, 1, 45, 49, 66, 89, 91, 109, Jefferson, Thomas, 162
165, 192; with David Benioff, 81 Jemison, Mae, 82
Hounsell-Drover, R. John, 6 Jesus, 2, 5, 12, 24, 46, 51, 54, 55, 70, 71, 75,
Housman, Laurence, 1 78, 86, 96, 101, 103, 136, 163, 166, 183,
Houston, Jean, 176, 197 196, 198, 199
Howell, James, 101 Jewett, Sarah Orne, 67
Hsuan Hua, 43 Job, The Book of, 26
Hubbard, Elbert, 100 Joel, Billy, 115
Hughes, Langston, 82, 143, 175 John, The First Epistle of, 92
Hugo, Victor, 26 John, The Gospel of, 11, 123
Hui-hai, Ta-chu, 160 John Paul II, Pope, 97, 121, 126
Hui-neng, 51 Johnson, Claudia “Lady Bird” 57
Huntley, Karyl, 107 Johnson, Gail, 112
Hupfield, Herman, 182 Johnson, Lyndon, 155
Hurston, Zora Neale, 38, 92, 134, 155 Johnson, Samuel, 145, 188
Husyn, Hyder, 45 Johnsson, Arne, 35
Huxley, Aldous, 46 John XXIII, Pope, 111, 201
Joio, Vicki Dello, 171
Jones, James Earl, 127
Iacocca, Lee, 145 Jong, K. T., 168
Ibsen, Henrik, 155 Jordan, Barbara, 198
I Ching, 152 Joseph (Hin-may-too-yah-lat-kekt) 79, 134,
Ignatieff, Michael, 125, 147 137
Ignatow, David, 192 Joshua, The Book of, 55
Ikeda, Daisaku, 87 Joubert, Joseph, 70
Ilibagiza, Immacule’e, 92, 101 Jowett, John Henry, 73
Inge, William, 27 Joyce, James, 114
Ionesco, Eugene, 11 József, Attila, 198
Irving, Washington, 116 Juarez, Benito, 132
Irwin, James, 3 Julian of Norwich, 191
Isaiah, The Book of, 28, 68, 127, 136, 199 Jung, Carl, 37, 40, 101, 133, 178
Isha Upanishad, 26 Junot, Laure, 116
Iyengar, B. K. S., 164

Kabat-Zinn, Jon, 50, 54, 146, 159

Jackobs, Don, 187 Kabir, 57
Jackson, George, 188 Kafka, Franz, 38, 60, 75, 167, 169, 181
Jackson, Jeanne, 175 Kanaratitake (Loraine Canoe), 24
Jacobs, Leonard, 8 Kant, Immanuel, 27
Jacobsen, Arne, 175 Kareena, Amy, 201
Jadallah, Alma Abdul-Hadi, 117 Katha Upanishad, 37
Jahandost, 5 Katie, Byron, 47
Jähn, Sigmund 3 Kaufman, Josh, 192
James, The Epistle of, 64 Kean, Gillian, 7, 173
James, Larry, 107 Keil, Annelie, 40
James, William, 175, 176, 201 Keith, Hamish, 81
Jameson, Storm, 172 Keller, Helen, 86, 163, 188
Jamil, Norainah Ahm, 13 Kent, Corita, 50
Jampolsky, Gerald G. 106, 108 Kenyon, Jane, 31
Jéan-Pierre, Dean, 8 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 23, 117, 122,
Jeffers, Robinson, 92 123, 133, 134
212
Kennedy, Jr., Robert F., 25, 134, 191 Lagerlöf, Salma, 38
Keyes, Jr., Ken, 183 LaMarr, Jean, 34
Khan, Abdul Ghaffar, 139 Lambovski, Boiko, 126
Khan, Pir Vilayat Inayat, 55 Lamott, Anne, 191
Khayyám, Omar, 50 Lao-tzu, 6, 19, 25, 37, 38, 51, 52, 158, 162,
Khoury, Elias, 1, 105 164, 165, 169, 181, 182
Kielburger, Craig, 144 Lappe, Anna, 190
Kierkegaard, Søren, 163 Lappe, Frances Moore, 87
Kiley, Richard, 25 Laszlo, Ervin, 15, 197
Kilpatrick, Martha, 43 Lauture, Denizé, 199
Kincaid, Jamaica, 8 Lawrence, D. H., 28, 88, 167
King, Coretta Scott, 114, 155 Lawton, Sally, with Jane Cantrell and Jane
King, Jr., Martin Luther, 31, 95, 103, 114, Harris, 88
120, 128, 129, 130, 133, 139, 141, 142, Lazarte, Leonardo, 37
152, 191, 197, 198 Leach, Penelope, 111
King III, Martin Luther, 123 Leder, Drew, 175
King, Serge Kahili, 31 Lee, Barbara, 139
King, Stephen Lee, Bruce, 188
Kingma, Daphne Rose, 101 LeGuin, Ursula, 38, 93
Kinnell, Galway, 45, 171 L’Engle, Madeleine, 90
Kinski, Klaus, 137, 151, 192 Lennon, John, 86, 136
Kingsolver, Barbara, 79, 190 Leonov, Aleksei, 3
Kipling, Rudyard, 198 Leopold, Aldo, 23
Kiosaaton, 2 LeShan, Eda, 168
Klauck, Hans-Josef, 128 Levertov, Denise, 50, 70
Klauser, Henriette Anne, 42 Levithan, David, 153
Knežević, Marija, 29 Leviticus, The Book of, 100
Kobus, Nicolai, 196 Lewis, C. S., 6, 9, 78, 93
Konushevci, Abdullah, 138 Lightman, Alan, 1, 17, 18, 45, 56, 66, 89,
Korczak, Janusz, 149 109, 115, 119, 191, 196, 200
Kornfield, Jack, 51, 107, 183 Lincoln, Abraham, 18, 26, 98, 156, 176,
Korun, Barbara, 192 186
Koutroulis, Bessie, 66 Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, 64, 160, 168
Kraus, Karl, 126 Linder, William, 134
Kravitz, Lenny, 136 Li Po, 63
Krieger, Stu, 75 Livesay, Dorothy, 151
Krishnamurti, Jiddu, 9, 75, 87, 93, 94, 120, Locke, John, 116
184 Loder, Ted, 82, 175
Kristjánsson, Kristján, 155 London, Jack, 71
Kuczynski, Alex, 1 Lone Man (Isna-la-wica), 153
Kuismai, Erkki, 103 Longacre, Doris Janzen, 159
Kulavkova, Kata, 102 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 188
Kulberg, Adam, 29, 72 Looking Horse, Arvol, 198
Kumar, Satish, 11, 120, 123 Lopes, Adília, 66
Küng, Hans, 144 Lorca, Federico Garcia, 25
Kunitz, Stanley, 66, 102 Lorde, Audre, 55, 173
Kushner, Lawrence, 51, 155 Lourie, David, 176
Kysia, Ramzi, 132 Louvin, Charlie, 91, 129
Lovelace, Richard, 155
Lowell, Amy, 113
LaDuke, Winona, 24 Lubbock, John, 168, 193
213
Lubrano, Antonio, 6 Maynard, Joyce, 150
Lucado, Max, 127 Mazzini, Guiseppe, 97, 98
Luke, The Gospel According to, 100 McCarthy, Margaret, 8
Luther, Martin, 51 McCheyne, Robert Murray, 173
Lynd, Robert, 24 McDonald, Kathleen, 91
Lyons, Oren, 23 McDowell, Christopher Forrest, 167
McGuckian, Medbh, 112
McQueen, Thelma “Butterfly”, 48
Ma, Dipa, 50, 71 Meadows, Donella, 148, 153
Maathai, Wangari, 21, 29, 34, 81, 95, 96, Means, Russell, 155
97, 110, 120, 140, 152, 199 Medicine Eagle, Brooke, 28
MacArthur, Douglas, 126 Mehmud, Qasim, 78
Machado, Antonio, 37 Melville, Herman, 154
Mache, Graça, 149 Menchú, Rigoberta, 1
Maclean, Norman, 36 Mencius, 94
MacLeish, Archibald, 155 Mendelsohn, Daniel, 17, 45, 46, 72, 85,
Madwed, Sidney, 162 103, 105, 119, 127, 129, 130
Magrelli, Valerio, 1 Mendonça, José Tolentino, 147
Mahabharata, 121, 183 Menuhin, Yehudi, 133, 200
Maharaj, Nisargadatta, 11, 48 Merbold, Ulf, 3
Malcolm X, 88, 97 Meredith, George, 79
Malorrus, Farley, 81 Merton, Thomas, 11, 14, 40, 43, 92, 94,
Mandela, Nelson, 55, 83, 110, 113, 155, 110, 128, 166, 168, 169, 181, 182, 185,
156, 191 198
Mandelstam, Nadezhda, 143 Merwin, W. S., 2, 42
Mankiller, Wilma, 78 Merzel, David, 9
Mann, Thomas, 169 Messer, Mari, 178
Mannes, Marya, 168 Michael, George, 164
Mansfield, Katherine, 110 Michaels-Cyrus, Madge, 142
Maran, René, 113 Michener, James, 179
Marchwinski, Alena, 180 Middleton, Harry, 36
Marcus Aurelius, 70, 107, 193 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 158
Marcus, Greil, 196 Mifsud, Immanuel, 171
Marcus Tullius Cicero, 9, 190 Miguel, Gloria, 119
Margolius, Hans, 194 Mildmay, Charles, 116
Markham, Edwin, 78, 179 Miles, Jack, 19
Markova, Dawna, 69 Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 44
Marks, Leonard, 22 Miller, Alice, 150
Marks, Lisa Rey, 162 Miller, Henry, 61, 167, 169
Marley, Bob, 68 Miller, Rhena Schweitzer, 199
Marshall, Thurgood, 159, 182 Millman, Andy, 175
Martin, Daniel, 6 Milne, A. A., 153, 186
Martin, Howard, with Doc Childre, 106 Miłosz, Czesław, 14
Martinez, German, 6 Milton, John, 186
Marty, Martin, 6, 59, 196 Minallah, Athar, 8
Marx, Karl, 87 Mistral, Gabriela, 148
Maslow, Abraham, 178 Mitchell, Edgar, 3
Masondo, Andrew, 118 Mitchell, Joni, 31
Matisse, Henri, 173 Mitchell, Stephen, 79
Mattina, MaryJane Incorvia, 42 Miyazawa, Kenji, 38
Maxwell, Glyn, 196 Moffatts, The, 162
214
Moliére, 187 Nerburn, Kent, 111, 146, 168
Moloko, 81 Neruda, Pablo, 113, 195, 199
Momaday, N. Scott, 8, 197 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 122
Mondfleur, D. H., 160 Neusner, Jacob, 162
Monet, Angela, 175 Newhart, Bob, 176
Monroe, Earl, 137 Newton, Joseph Fort, 166
Montaigne, Michel de, 43, 50, 184, 186 Nguyen, Tam d., 20
Montero, Luis García, 158 Nguyen, Vivica V., 151
Montesquieu, Charles, 27 Nicholas of Cusa, 6, 7
Montessori, Maria, 135 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 106
Moody, D. L., 43 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 9, 18, 22, 160, 163,
Moore, Marianne, 128 175, 176, 178
Moore, Thomas, 63, 160, 166 Nightingale, Florence, 46, 182
Morris, William, 160 Nikolov, Lyubomir, 196
Morrison, Toni, 92, 148, 156 Nin, Anaïs, 11, 52, 57, 68, 82, 83
Morrissette, Vern, with Linda Clarkson Norris, Kathleen, 114
and Gabriel Régallet, 148 Nouwen, Henri, 55, 169
Morrissey, Mary Mannin, 104, 106, 107 Novalis, 180
Morrow, Lance, 106 Novello, Antonio, 150
Mortman, Doris, 159 Nye, Naomi Shihab, 63, 172
Moses, 2 Nyidron, Phuntsog, 102
Moses, Emmanuel, 166
Moss, Richard, 162
Mother, The, 181 Oberst, Karen L., 42
Mother of Gopi Chand, The, 6 Obi, 64
Mother Teresa, 41, 43, 100, 101, 110, 172, O’Connor, Sandra Day, 182
178, 181 O’Donohue, John, 151
Mott, Lucretia, 149 O’Donovan, Leo, 162
Mo-tzu, 96 Ofudesaki, 7
Muhammad, 1, 11, 26, 27, 95, 117, 118, Öijer, Bruno K. 81
140, 186 O’Keeffe, Georgia, 40
Muir, John, 3, 15, 18, 25, 68, 82, 166 Okri, Ben, 180
Muktananda, 163 Olatunji, Babatunde, 48, 172
Mumonkan, 201 Oliver, Mary, 22, 46, 63, 68, 69, 70, 71, 91,
Murodov, Jora, 21, 39 93, 111, 158, 166, 183, 187
Murrow, Edward R., 116, 124 Olmos, Edward James, 113
Muste, A. J., 129, 133 O’Neill, Edmund, 183
Myrdal, Jan, 79 Ong, Walter J., 178
Myss, Caroline, 169 Orabueze, Florence, 145
Oracle of Atsuta, 15
Ore, Nancy, 111
Nadwi, Abul Hasan Ali, 51 Ortega y Gasset, José, 86, 114, 196
Nair, Keshavan, 57 Ortiz, Simon F., 112
Nakanishi, Naokata, 68 Orwell, George, 80, 126, 147, 178, 196
National Geographic, 24 Osho, 40, 103
Ndegéocello, Me’shell, 128 Osler, William, 144
Ndhlovu, Jeanette, 139 Ouida, 144
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 98 Ouimet, Randolph, 113, 197
Nelson, Mary, 135 Ovid, 18
Nelson, Wally, 140 Oz, Amos, 79, 80
Nemerov, Howard, 1, 45 Ozick, Cynthia, 73
215
Padgett, Ron, 60 Pran, Dith, 105, 127
Paine, Thomas, 1, 116, 182, 197, 198 Prather, Hugh, 54
Palmer, Parker, 162 Presley, Elvis, 113, 181
Palmo, Tenzin, 121 Priest, Ivy Baker, 193
Panassidi, Stacey, 89 Proctor, Adelaide, 83
Pandita, Sayadaw U, 64 Proust, Marcel, 9, 68, 73, 183
Panikkar, Raimundo, 11, 113, 121, 127 Proverbs, The Book of, 43, 48, 79, 80, 82, 183
Panini, 42 Psalms, The Book of, 132
Papke, Andrew, 189 Pupovac, Jessica, 39
Parks, Rosa, 55 Pythagoras, 28
Parton, Dolly, 157
Pascal, Blaise, 75
Patel, Eboo, 21, 128, 198 Qabbani, Nizar, 98, 119, 137
Pateman, Trevor, 180 Quarles, Francis, 164
Paton, Alan, 106 Quasman, Ann, 162
Patton, Sally, 7, 149 Quinlan, Rosalie, 93
Paul the Apostle, 9, 48, 78, 92, 104, 108, Qur’an, The, 139, 146, 166
153, 154, 155, 162, 184, 190, 196, 200 Quynh, Tran Manh, 49, 105, 198
Paz, Octavio, 83, 184 Qwatsinas (Edward Moody) 25
Peace Pilgrim (Mildred Lisette Norman),
78, 135
Peale, Norman Vincent, 164 Raab, Lawrence, 33, 201
Pearce, Joseph Chilton, 178 Radmacher, Mary Anne
Pederson, Mark, 195 Rahman, Abdur, 1
Peltier, Leonard, 152 Rahner, Karl, 102, 115
Pelzer, Dave, 113 Raine, Kathleen, 25
Pequeño, Kathleen, 122 Ramacharaka, 134
Percy, Walker, 40, 181 Ramakrishna, 2
Peter, The First Epistle of, 154 Ram, Nilakanta Sri, 58, 91
Peterson, Brenda, 25 Rama, Sri Swami, 92
Peterson, Wilfred, 110 Ramayana, 52
Phillpotts, Eden, 51 Ramikrishnananda, 38
Pickens, William, 154 Ramirez, Virginia, 198
Pickford, Mary, 110 Ramshaw, Gail, 128
Piercy, Marge, 66 Rand, Ayn, 54, 198
Pike, Christopher, 126 Rankin, Jeanette, 129
Pindar, 24 Rawat, Prem, 155
Piper, Billie, 90 Raymo, Chet, 3
Pire, Dominique, 117 Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 29, 156
Pittman, Kyran, 156 Real Live Preacher, 107
Pius XII, Pope, 38 Redmoon, Ambrose, 57
Plath, Sylvia, 102, 193 Reese, Lizette, 6
Plato, 96, 127 Régallet, Gabriel, with Linda Clarkson and
Plotinus, 177 Vern Morrissette, 148
Podracká, Dana, 137 Reich, Wilhelm, 10
Porchia, Antonio, 76, 193, 195 Reichard, William, 192
Porter, Katherine Anne, 167 Reis, Patricia, 72
Potok, Chaim, 118, 195 Remen, Rachel Naomi, 40, 180
Pourier, Olivia, 157 Reynolds, Zeb, 167
Powell, Colin, 82 Rhodes, Lou, 42
Powell, Jonathan, 123 Rich, Adrienne, 12, 19, 33, 80, 85, 96, 127,
216
 148, 197 Sagan, Carl, 2, 3, 14
Rickford, Luke M., 49 Sage, Clary, 201
Riddle, English, 151 Saïd, Amina, 89
Rideh, Mahmoud Abu, 13, 29, 102 Saionji, Masami, 88
Rig-Veda, 6 Salman, Arifa, 20, 21
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 11, 37, 48, 54, 57, 60, Salzberg, Sharon, 10, 11, 18, 20, 42, 89, 91,
61, 70, 87, 92, 102, 123, 147, 168, 195 95, 110, 159
Rinpoche, Lama Zopa, 11 Samanasuttam, 106
Rinpoche, Patrul, 195 Samuel the Younger, 104
Rinpoche, Sogyal, 67 Sánchez, Oscar Arias, 95, 133
Riskin, Shlomo, 13, 100 Sand, George, 93
Robb, Simon, 79 Sandburg, Carl, 48, 130, 132, 152, 173
Robinson, Jackie, 117 Santayana, George, 46, 98, 166, 167
Robinson, Mary, 134 Saotome, Mitsugi, 153
Rodale, Ardath, 145 Saraswati, Sivananda, 181, 186
Rodriguez, Luis, 42 Sarton, May, 11, 64, 87, 110, 166, 168, 187
Rodriguez, Richard, 45 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 155
Roethke, Theodore, 64, 173 Sassoon, Siegfried, 200
Rohr, Richard, 107 Satir, Virginia, 61
Romanell, Patrick, 128 Saturday Review, 129
Romero, Óscar, 132, 147 Saying, Afghan, 38, 106, 140
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 54, 57, 58, 152 Saying, African, 5, 104, 149, 152
Roosevelt, Franklin, 25, 155 Saying, Arapaho, 24
Roosevelt, Theodore, 23 Saying, Australian aboriginal, 31, 82
Rosario, Kim, 1 Saying, Bateke, 152
Rosenberg, Marshall, 103, 120 Saying, Celtic, 37, 57
Rosenthal, A. M., 155 Saying, Chinese, 24, 38, 51, 54, 106, 166,
Rossetti, Christina, 15 169, 186, 188, 190
Rostand, Jean, 114 Saying, Creole, 74
Rotblat, Joseph, 31, 135, 141, 197 Saying, Dakota, 193
Rousseau, Jean-Jaques, 163 Saying, German, 54, 162
Roux, Joseph, 169 Saying, Haitian, 38
Rowling, J. K., 83, 144 Saying, Hasidic, 75
Roy, Suzanna Arundhati, 70, 198 Saying, Hausa, 74
Rudnick, Paul, 172 Saying, Hopi, 28
Rukeyser, Muriel, 198 Saying, Irish, 153
Rumi, Jalaluddin, 5, 31, 50, 55, 56, 64, 73, Saying, Islamic, 73, 79, 80
74, 82, 89, 101, 137, 162, 164, 166, 167, Saying, Japanese, 110, 181, 193
173, 180, 181, 183, 186 Saying, Jewish, 103
Rushdie, Salman, 124, 155, 193 Saying, Lakota, 15
Russell, Bertrand, 9, 102, 129; with Albert Saying, Latin, 134
Einstein, 128 Saying, Native American, 24, 93
Russell, George William, 180 Saying, Ndebele, 43
Russell, John Edward, 115 Saying, Oglala Sioux, 37
Rustin, Bayard, 104 Saying, Okanogan, 15
Ryan, Kay, 169, 186 Saying, Polish, 186
Saying, Polynesian, 76
Saying, Swahili, 73
Saakashvili, Mikheil, 107 Saying, Yiddish, 175
Sabab, an Iraqi man, 30 Saying, Yoruba, 186
Sadat, Anwar, 50 Saying, Zen, 12
217
Saying, Zuni, 200 Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotaka), 15
Schaefer, Charles, 178 Skoyles, John, 49
Schieffer, J. Thomas, 19, 122 Sluiter, Jeroen, 60
Schneider, Andrew, with Diane Frolov, 115 Smalley, S. R., 94
Schneider, Pat, 119 Smartt, Lisa, 110
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 48, 193 Smith, Clive Stafford, 49
Schreiner, Olive, 166 Smith, Huston, 32, 118, 154
Schulz, William, 155 Smith, Sydney, 116
Schumacher, E. F., 159, 183 Snyder, Gary, 58, 181
Schweitzer, Albert, 27, 64, 73, 96, 129, 139 Sockman, Ralph W., 118
Schwimmer, Rosika, 98 Socrates, 109
Seattle (Sealth), 15, 26 Soetendorf, Avraham, 199
Seeger, Pete, 98, 114 Soler, Ramón Pascuel Muñoz, 196
Seierstad, Åsne, 17, 21, 30, 39, 42, 49, 81, Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 144
90, 102, 109, 115, 120, 127, 131, 137, Sondheim, Stephen, 176
180, 185, 199 Song, Igbo, 70
Sellner, Edward C. ,11 Song, Inuit, 185
Seneca, 70, 96, 98, 162 Sonnenberg, Ewa, 84
Seng-ts’an, 6, 9, 120, 137 Sontag, Susan, 70
Serageldin, Ismail, 24 Sparks, Alister, 103
Serling, Rod, 116 Spencer, Debra, 66
Sexton, Anne, 8, 42 Spencer, Herbert, 116
Shakespeare, William, 15, 109, 172, 187 Spinoza, Baruch, 61
Shan-Chi Ko, 180 Spires, Elizabeth, 119, 147, 200
Shankar, Ravi, 46, 51, 78 Spong, John Shelby, 32
Shankara, 6 Stafford, William, 119
Shapiro, Rami, 79 Standing Bear, Luther, 22, 37
Shapiro, Richard, 103 Starhawk, 85, 127, 152
Sharmaji, 1 Steele, Johan, 126
Sharp, Gene, 140 Stefik, Mark J., 87
Shaw, George Bernard, 25, 26, 27, 144 Stegner, Wallace, 23
Sheen, Martin, 134 Steinbeck, John, 25
Sheldrake, Rupert, 73 Steindl-Rast, David, 73, 162
Shelton, Mary Murray, 11 Sterling, Valentine, 98
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 193 Stern, Anna Heller, 72
Shleinov, Roman, 144 Stern, Gerald, 1
Shmelke, Shmuel, 100 Sterne, Laurence, 169
Shorter, Dora Sigerson, 192 Stevens, Wallace, 11, 41
Showers, Paul, 163 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 78, 160
Shucman, Helen, with William Thetford, St. James, Elaine, 159
78, 195, 197 Stoker, Bram, 115
Shumate, David, 72 Stout, Maureen, 123
Silko, Leslie Marmon, 28 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 61
Sills, Beverly, 37 Strand, Mark, 50
Simic, Charles, 119 Strange, Curtis, 115
Simpson, Wallis, 109 Stung Arm, 2
Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 28 Sulmasy, Daniel, 182
Singer, Michael A., 144 Sumari, Anni, 67
Singer, Peter, 27 Sutta Nipata, 136, 173
Singh, Bhagat, 13 Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro, 48
Sinyella, 191 Suzuki, David, 3, 15, 23, 135
218
Suzuki, Shunryu, 33 Toller, Ernst, 87
Swan, Yvonne, 29 Tolstoy, Leo, 28, 48, 120
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 96 Toren, John, 45
Swift, Jonathan, 71 Toynbee, Arnold, 155
Swimme, Brian, 31, 180 Tracy, Brian, 162
Swomley, John, 141 Traditional Circle of Elders, 197
Szent-Gyorgyi, Albert, 24 Trapp, Jacob, 52
Trevino, Lee, 49
Trope, Zoe, 143
Tagore, Rabindranath, 14, 50, 73, 110, 175 Trungpa, Chögyam, 163, 169
Taki, 176 Truth, The Gospel of, 154
Talib, Ali ibn Abi, 186 Trygstad, Ray, 154
Talmud, The, 64, 193 T-shirt, 13
Tan, Amy, 21 Tubman, Harriet, 156
Taylor, Betsy, 67 Tucker, Mary Evelyn, 200
Taylor, Elmo, 84 Tulku, Tarthang, 152
Taylor, Mellonie I., 181 Tutu, Desmond, 31, 93, 106, 107, 142
Teale, Edwin Way, 158 Twain, Mark, 57, 106, 116, 126, 158, 162,
Teasdale, Wayne, 37, 87 175, 176
Tecumseh, 11, 68, 74 Tweedie, Irina, 192
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 57, 91 Twist, Lynne, 158
Temple, William, 43
ten Boom, Corrie, 54
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 102
Tenorio, Frank, 24 Ueshiba, Morihei, 26
Terence, 162 United Nations Global Atlas of Human Rights,
Teresa of Avila, 91, 186 196
Terkel, Studs, 153 Ustaszeski, Michelle C., 156
Thales of Miletus, 75, 100 Ustinov, Peter, 126
Thepwethi, Phra, 34 U Thant, 117
Thering, Rose, 118 Uvavnuk, 14
Thetford, William, with Helen Shucman,
78, 195, 197
Thomajan, P. K., 162 Valad, Sultan, 187
Thompson, Benjamin, 49, 131 Valéry, Paul, 113
Thompson, Dorothy, 54, 139 Vanderhaar, Gerard, 120
Thompson, Judith, 94 van der Post, Laurens, 83
Thoreau, Henry David, 35, 51, 82, 116, Vanunu, Mordecai, 29, 201
158, 159, 168, 178 Velter, André, 30
Thorson, John, 24 Vinson, Frederic Moore, 129
Thunder Hawk, Madonna, 157 Virgil, 54
Thurman, Howard, 34, 82, 153, 181, 193 Vivekananda, 27, 101
Thurman, Robert, 103 Voltaire, 116
Tiihonen, Ilpo, 119 von Braun, Werner, 3
Tillich, Paul, 15, 168 von Eschenbach, Marie Ebner, 159
Tillotson, John, 187 Vonnegut, Kurt, 1, 115
Tizon, Robert, 164
Tobin, L., 149
Toffler, Alvin, 87 Wagner, Richard, 172
Tolkien, J. R. R., 38 Wagoner, David, 50
Tolle, Eckhart, 61, 187 Waite, Terry, 20, 21, 123
219
Walcott, Derek, 102 Wilson, Woodrow, 98
Waldrop, Robert, 196 Winfrey, Oprah, 120
Walesa, Lech, 121 Wink, Walter, 20, 129, 139, 140, 141, 142
Walker, Alice, 26, 167, 201 Winterson, Jeanette, 180
Walker, Charles, 3 Witkin, Georgia, 173
Walsch, Neale Donald, 120 Wolf, Gary, 83
Ward, Barbara, 25 Wolfe, Roger, 137
Ware, Heny, 34 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 70
Warren, Rick, 153 Wood, Beatrice, 175
Washburn, Lemuel K., 179 Wooden, John, 38
Washington, George, 98 Woodward, Lucy, 119
Waterman, Nixon, 38 Woolf, Virginia, 83, 115, 158
Waters, Alice, 23 Wordsworth, William, 37, 158
Watts, Alan, 7, 10, 14 Worley, Randall, 106
Watts, Isaac, 178 Wright, Charles, 38
Weber, Bruce, 128 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 167
Weil, Simone, 43, 79, 95, 100, 140, 153, Wright, James, 38, 102
168 Wright, Jim, 24
Wells, H. G., 98, 110 Wright, Richard, 151
Welty, Eudora, 57 Wright, Stephen, 3
Wesley, John, 10, 191 Wu-men, 160
West, Cornel, 100, 140
Westwood, Vivienne, 13
Wharton, Edith, 58, 169 Yazzie, Esther, 188
White, E. B., 45 Yellow Wolf, 26
White Face, Charmaine, 6 Yeshe, Thubten, 110
Whitman, Walt, 9, 34, 37, 51, 75, 163, 166, Yirrkala, Narritjin Maymuru, 22
183 Yogananda, Paramahansa, 78
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 45 Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh, 38, 78, 158, 173,
Whyte, David, 195 183
Wiesel, Elie, 37, 64, 73, 131, 135, 136, 144, Yun-men, 163
145, 157 Yunus, Muhammad, 123, 134
Wijnberg, Nachoem M., 139, 175 Yutang, Lin, 145
Wilde, Oscar, 34, 52, 70, 102, 167
Wilkie, Wendell, 155
Wilkomirski, Binjamin, 29 Zahari, Said, 97, 105
Will, George, 48 Zaidi, Abid Raza, 20, 21
Willard, Nancy, 183 Zakir, Nazir, 13
Williams, Betty, 88 Zempel, Solveig, 72
Williams, C. K., 68 Zhiti, Visar, 53
Williams, Margery, 35 Zinn, Howard, 123, 126
Williams, Miller, 96 Zoroaster, 96
Williams, Tennessee, 48, 113 Zukav, Gary, 9
Williams, William Carlos, 180 Zusak, Markus, 3
Williamson, Marianne, 54, 55, 87, 198 Žybul, Viktar, 88
Wilson, August, 1, 37, 64, 102

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 ABOUT THE EDITOR

PHYLLIS COLE-DAI is a writer and composer residing in Brookings, South

Dakota. Educated at Goshen College, the Methodist Theological School in
Ohio, and The Ohio State University, she has co-authored half a dozen
books, her most recent being The Emptiness of Our Hands: A Lent Lived on the
Streets (with James Murray). She has also recorded two collections of origi-
nal solo piano music and one collection of children’s music.
Phyllis unites her deep love of writing and composing with an even
deeper passion for humanitarian service. With each sale of her books and
recordings, she financially supports social justice and humanitarian relief
efforts within the United States and abroad. In the words of legendary folk
singer Pete Seeger, she wants to help “bind up this sorry world with hand
and heart and mind.” To learn more about her work, please visit
www.phylliscoledai.com.
Phyllis and her husband Jihong Cole-Dai, a research scientist and uni-
versity professor, are the shamelessly doting parents of Nathan, whose Chi-
nese name, LanTian, means "wide-open blue sky."