I am only one,
but I am one.
I cannot do everything,
but I can do something.
And because I cannot
do everything, I will
not refuse to do the
something that I can do.
What I can do,
I should do.
And what I should do,
by the grace of God,
I will do.
It is a simple law: You cannot feel right by doing wrong; you feel right only by doing right.
Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then they are able to act with vigor on what they ought to do.
My activism really is for myself, because I see places in the world where I feel I should be. If there is something really bad, really evil, happening somewhere, then that is where I should be. I need, for myself, to feel that I have stood there. It feels a lot better than just watching it on television.
You want to know how to be like indians? Live close to the earth. Get rid of some of your things. Help each other. Talk to the creator. Be quiet more. Listen to the earth instead of building things on it all the time.
In a perfect world perhaps we would all see more clearly. But this is not a perfect world, and it is enough to hope that each of us will share our talents, and find the balance between greed and benevolence that will allow us to live and thrive and help the world around us grow.
Hope is... not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out
A concern of some new meditators is that a peaceful heart doesn't allow for taking a stand, or acting decisively against injustice. This is particularly true for Jews, for whom the prophetic vision of social justice is a corner stone of religious practice. My father, for instance, thought that a peaceful heart preculded forceful action. he used to say, " I nned my anger. It obliges me to take action." I thin kmy father was partly right. Anger arises, naturally, to signal disturbing situations that might require action. But actions initiated in anger perpetuate suffering. The most effective actions are thoase conceived in the wisdom of clarity.
