185 Quotes by Mark Nepo

The practice of listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on Earth.

Now, I want only to give away all that I’m blessed to know and disappear in the stream.

In loving ourselves, we love the world.

What is not ex-pressed is de-pressed.

When we need it most, it is nearly impossible to see ourselves with compassion from the slit of a narrowed mind all tensed for battle.

Though the Earth is touched by everything alive, it never stops turning around the fire at its center, and though we are touched by the stories of strangers and the far-off songs of birds lost in wind, we find our way by following the spirit’s voice at our center. Too much is lost in waiting for someone else to tell us that what moves us is real.

The truth is that life will break us and burn us at some point on the journey. This is not pessimistic or cynical but descriptive of the geography of being alive. It is part of how we are transformed by the journey. Yet when we’re broken or burned by events, we feel betrayed by God. When we’re broken or burned by people, we feel betrayed by other souls.

We are the stage and all the players.

The journey is made easier when we can accept that the process of living is designed for what matters to come through us tenderly.