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Listening reminds me how precious it is to be here at all. And so, listening is the first step to peace, both inner peace and the compassion that connects people.

Mark Nepo

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Mark Nepo
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: February 23
Poet
Brooklyn
New York
Firsts
Reminds
First
Precious
People
Inner
Step
Compassion
Listening
Steps
Peace
Connects

More quotes by Mark Nepo

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All the buried seeds crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can't see.
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It has always amazed and humbled me to how the risk to bloom can seem so insurmountable beforehand and so inevitably freeing once the threshold of suffering is crossed.
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We are love. But in an everyday setting we have to make choices. We have limits. We can love everyone and we can't love everyone.
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Even when clouds grow thick, the sun still pours its light earthward.
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Let's be in awe which doesn't mean anything but the courage to gape like fish at the surface breaking around our mouths as we meet the air.
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Rather than finding heaven on earth, we are asked to release heaven by living on earth.
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When we deny what comes through us, it defines us. When we honestly face what comes through us, then who we are grows.
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Before we can count we are taught to be grateful for what others do. As we are broken open by our experience, we begin to be grateful for what is, and if we live long enough and deep enough and authentically enough, gratitude becomes a way of life.
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We tend to make the thing in the way the way.
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The greedy one gathered all the cherries, while the simple one tasted all the cherries in one.
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There are many ways that we grow, but there are two major ways: We shed what no longer works, or we're broken open. If we're unwilling to shed, then we will be broken open. Through shedding, we are worn down, just as nature is eroded to its beauty. I think that through suffering, human beings are eroded to our beauty.
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If I dare to hear you I will feel you like the sun And grow in your direction.
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Whatever opens us is not as important as what it opens.
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Each soul on earth is complete unto itself.
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The real challenge is to remember to see clearly when everything's flying around us and we're wrapped up in our [emotional] wounds and traumas.
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No amount of thinking can stop thinking.
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Whatever truth we feel compelled to withhold, no matter how unthinkable it is to imagine ourselves telling it, not to is a way of spiritually holding our breath. You can only do it for so long.
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Walk long enough and we all trade places.
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To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.
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In truth, the more we lean into life, the more we authentically interact with the world, the brighter our flame.
Mark Nepo