Echoes

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. ... Don't stop to marvel.

I was walking along Tinker Creek and thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment. Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else.

Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

The present moment contains past and future. The secret of transformation, is in the way we handle this very moment.

I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.

...why did we wait for any thing? — why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact!

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.

The purpose of life...is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

Do not, my soul, seek immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.

He who does not value life does not deserve it.

The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.