14 Quotes by Leonard Scheff

When angry, count to Zen.

But in receiving graciously, in accepting wholeheartedly, we are also giving. We are allowing the giver to enter into relationship with us, acknowledging his good will, and sharing in our common humanity and interdependence.

As the Buddha says, We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

Most of us don’t know what it actually feels like to be alive. We know about our problems, our desires, our goals and accomplishments, but we don’t know much about our lives. It generally takes a huge event, the equivalent of a birth or a death, to wake up our sense of living this moment we are given – this moment that is just for the time being, because it passes even as it arrives.

I have always relied on myself. I have tried to help others, but have done things alone and it has always worked, more or less. But here I could not rely on myself. I fell through the bottom, and hands reached out to catch me. Of all the events around my illness, that is the most shocking. That is what asks for the greatest change in how I see the world.

I’m not okay; you’re not okay. It’s okay.

Your most powerful tool in some situations may be what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “compassionate listening.” “Sit quietly and listen with only one purpose: to allow the other person to express himself and find relief from his suffering.

Keeping score creates resentment, which is a way of feeding chronic low-level anger.

The Case of the Impossible Person Never wrestle with a hog The hog gets dirty You get dirty But the hog enjoys it. – American Folk Saying.