empowerment

We all have a divine mission on earth. Let that mission be to inspire love and embrace the light within. Let that mission be to have peace in our hearts as we create heaven on earth. Let that mission be to seek empowerment through transformation and to breathe joy into everything we do. If we allow these things to be our mission the golden light of the sun will shine on our souls and change our world forever.

"Authority means influence and power.  So where does spiritual authority come from?  Can a teacher give spiritual authority to their successors?  Not on your life.  You can spiritually empower a successor, but you can't give them spiritual authority.  There is only one person who can grant spiritual authority to the teacher, new or old, and that is the student.  Most students, when they begin to study with a teacher, don't realize that they're granting spiritual authority.  But it is critically important to know when you are extending such authority.  Otherwise you can unknowingly get seduced into giving away your power.  Real teachers won't accept your power.  This Dharma is about your empowerment, not about giving your power away.  In Zen, we have teachers who can point the way.  They don't tell you how to live your life.  That choice only you can make."

Wanting others to love you, you give away your heart. Wanting others to see you, you give away your eyes.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Imagine that the whole world belongs to you.  The birch trees in New Hampshire's White Mountains are yours, and so are the cirrus clouds in the western sky at dusk and the black sand on the beaches of Hawaii's big island.  You own everything, my dear sovereign - the paintings in all the museums of the world, as well as the internet and the wild horses and the roads.

Please take good care of it all, OK?  Be an enlightened monarch who treats your domain with reverent responsibility.  And make sure you also enjoy the full measure of fun that comes with such mastery.  Glide through life as if all of creation is yearning to honor and entertain you.

AUTONOMOUS NURTURING.  Not waiting for someone to give you what you can give yourself.

In the New World, you'll kick your own ass and I'll wash my own brain.  I'll be my own parents and you'll be you own wife.  And vise versa.  That'll be normal in the New World - different from the Old World, where everyone except me is to blame for my ignorance and you call on everyone except yourself to give you what you need.

I’ll push my own buttons and right my own wrongs.  You'll wake yourself up and sing your won songs.

An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must, nevertheless, suffer for it.

The task ahead of you is never as great as the strength within you

Heroes choose what they want:  being in many places at once, experiencing many possibilities all at once, and then collapsing on the one.