I DON'T KNOW

Brother David Steindl-Rast: Among the many things that profoundly impress me about the Dalai Lama, quite high up on the list is his ability to say "I don't know". I've often wished that other people in prominent positions wouldn't feel the compulsion to have an answer for everything and would feel equally free to say "I don't know." It's a sign of wisdom to know that you don't know and a sign of stupidity to think that you know everything. I admire it enormously in him, and wonder why so few people in leading positions reach that stage.

Robert Aitken Roshi: The anxiety to have a ready answer, it seems to me, has two aspects. One is "I want to be equal to this question." Especially for someone in a position of leadership, for someone who's expected to have answers, not having an answer is equated with failure. We want our knowledge, our sense of the world, to form a reasonably complete pattern, one that will hold up under questioning. The second part of the problem is that it's very difficult for most people even to find the quietness that is the mind of "I don't know." Their inner monologues go on and on, constantly, so in response to a question, out comes that inner monologue, just projected into public discourse . . .

Not knowing is most intimate. Intimacy . . . is realization itself. When you are intimate with something, you are one with it. When the Dalai Lama says, "I don't know", he's showing himself and showing the truth.

- from The Ground We Share

GRATEFULNESS

...it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

 - Brother David Steindl-Rast in Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

GREAT LEADERS

I hear people everywhere saying that the trouble with our time is that we have no great leaders any more. If we look back we always had them. But to me it seems that there is a very profound reason why there are no great leaders any more. It is because they are no longer needed. The message is clear. You no longer want to be led from the outside. Every man must be his own leader. He now knows enough not to follow other people. He must follow the light that's within himself, and through this light he will create a new community. You see, wherever I go in the world, this to me is a general trend. I am aware of the fact that there are already people in existence today - take us - who really belong to a community which does not exist yet. That is, we are the bridge between the community we've left and the community which doesn't exist yet.

Laurens van der Post, A Walk With A White Bushman

RELIGION

It's like water; water is very powerful, but very humble. The opposite of that is judging and condemning. Any religion that judges and condemns is a spiritually retarded religion. The basic core may be good but back at headquarters they're always trying for superiority. One that brings kindness and redemption - a win-win situation for people and the planet - that's my religion. I shy away from that word because religion to me is right next to politics, which is right next to corruption. My metaphor is the desert - in the desert you need water, not wine or beer, because with those you're gonna die. Religion and politics is like Coca-Cola or something, when what you need is water. There's a big difference betwen the love for power and the power of love.

- Carlos Santana, in Whole Earth, Summer 2000.

REMEDY

One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy - which means he often finds the remedy too late.

- Cardinal de Retz

A WARRIOR

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that the warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse. - Don Juan, Tales of Power