"Fear lives in a past experience or in a future assumption of what might happen." — Kimmy Fasani Outside Podcast: What Snowboarding Has to do With Parenthood, Loss, and Cancer
"I really try to see [each spot I visit] with new eyes, because I don't want to become complacent just because I've lived here for so long. I want to see everything new all the time. [I want] to be always open and aware of my environment and the new things that it's telling me, or the old things that it's reminding me of." — Alexandra de Steiguer HumaNature Podcast Episode 124: The Woman of Star Island
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." — JRR Tolkein via Gandalf The Lord of the Rings
"“So where’s your motor?” I answer without thinking, “In the river beneath my feet.” ... Beneath my shoes was solid ground, but the mountains are fluid, alive. They have a flow, an energy older and wiser that can carry me...I’d felt it with my whole being on Hope Pass, my legs absorbing energy from the earth, my torso bending to the slope of the hill, the slope showing me how to run on water beneath my feet, my body flowing uphill the whole way. The energy wasn’t mine, it was bigger than me. It was all around, limitless." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Anything we do for a long time can become stale if we’re not careful. Suddenly there are conditions, demands, desires for recognition, success, profit, improvement. In Zen, this is called “gaining idea,” and it’s antithetical to zazen. “Our way to sit is not to acquire something; it is to express our true nature,” Suzuki Roshi wrote. “That is our practice.”" — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Sitting taught me how to pay attention without creating stories around what I saw...Everything is Zen when you see it clearly for what it is, rather than what you want it to be." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"In Zen, not knowing is considered a form of wisdom. Being willing to accept uncertainty brings you closer to the truth of life. When you no longer hold fast to fixed ideas or outcomes, to what you want to happen, you see more clearly what is happening." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"I know how seductive holding on to suffering can be because I’ve done it. In many ways it feels safe. I know how powerful the identity of brokenness can be and I have many versions of this story." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"If we stay in the story too long, it becomes a cage." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"The first rule of rivers is the first rule of Zen. Don’t fight the current. Go with it, not against it." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Our stories are built from bits and pieces, broken fragments we string together, determined by chance and choice, accident and intent—sudden bursts of understanding that illuminate the truth of who we are." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Imagining a feeling of happiness, especially during meditation, starts to shape our lives toward it despite no external factors changing at all." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"I marvel at how quickly unfamiliar experiences transform into mundane reality." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Relentlessly pursuing happiness can subconsciously reinforce discontent because the story we’re telling ourselves is that we aren’t happy." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Breathing is the first thing we are given and the last thing that’s going to leave." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"It’s strange how we miss things the most just as they’re about to end." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Airman's Odyssey
"We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"This, I believe, is why time moves so slowly as a child – why school days creep by and summer breaks stretch on. Your brain is paying attention to every second. It must as it learns the patterns of living. Every second has value. But as you get older, and the patterns become more obvious, time speeds up. Especially once you find your groove in the working world. The layout of your days becomes predictable, a routine, and once your brain reliably knows what’s next, it reclines and closes its eyes. Time pours through your hands like sand." — Jedidiah Jenkins To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
"The journey you travel on your feet is less important than the distance you cover in your head." — Mishka Shubaly