Coach Kenji

A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. - George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Since the whole world is run through our own individual filters, then life is just one massive surreal dream that we each make up.  What is reality, anyway? (no, I haven't been smoking dope ... today).  Is reality the intersection of when we each agree that what's in each of our heads matches then that's real? When a world class neurologist says that our "eyesight" is only a small percentage of how we "see" (we "see" in our dreams), and the rest of it is our personal filter, what is it then we're making up today? Is your life full of abundance, love, opportunities to see a smile on a stranger, and a beautiful day? Or is it full of horrible parking tickets, a restaurant meal that was 'awful', and people who don't meet your needs? Where will you put your focus today? - Me

As one can see when the eyes are open, so one can understand when the heart is open. - Hazrat Inayat Khan For me, understanding when my heart is open is when I feel compassion. The opposite is giving someone the finger in traffic. I'm not sure if they're suffering, but in  THAT moment it's clear that I am. I'm taking a hearty swig off of the bleach bottle of a fearfully closed heart. On most days when I'm in traffic, I think, when someone barges by, obviously impatient because I'm driving the speed limit, oh, poor them, they're running away from this moment, this beautiful moment, and I know that then, they too, currently have the bleach bottle in their hand. - Me.

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see. - Dr. Robert Holden Lying in a heap of exhaustion after a long day, my chronic illness telling me that the day is over, I paused to have a minor hissy fit then realized that I knew this teaching. As I lay in my car I took in the dappling sunlight on the sky blue cinder block wall of the library where I'd just checked out some books. It may be in only an instant, it might be only for an instant, but it is, after all, an instant of peace. - Me

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. - Lao Tzu

A life of gratitude accepts the bad with the good. Genuine gratitude is not a zero sum game in which thankfulness increases the more fortunate you are and decreases the more adversity you experience. - Dan Clendenin

The depth and sweetness of The Divine is everywhere, especially in our doubts, fears, and worries. - Me.

When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim, "Ah," you are participating in divinity. - Joseph Campbel

May i welcome change as a blessed opportunity to grow and savor—in each unrepeatable moment’s fleetingness. - Brother David (www.gratefulness.org)

We can't control our destiny, but we can control who we become. - Anne Frank