A Sufi story…
Past the seeker, as he prayed, came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them, the holy one went down into deep prayer and cried, “Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?”
And out of the long silence, God said: “I did do something about them. I made you.”
a Zen story about following our true nature Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell…
a contemporary Christian story A pious man who tried to live by God’s will dwelled in a valley out in the country. One day a great rain came to his valley and the floodwaters rose. The man went from the first floor to the second floor as the rains continued. Finally he climbed out onto…
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocost survivor. He is the author of ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’. Between a stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Viktor Frankl The response I have to a…
a Zen Buddhist story There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses….
Epictetus was an ancient Greek philosopher Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. – Epictetus AD 55 to AD 135 Such simple wisdom from 2,000 years ago. At Twelve Step meetings I express this same thought in the form of the Serenity Prayer. 500 years…
a native American story An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, ‘A fight is going on inside me . . . it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,…