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Sometimes pain and illness are not meant to be removed. You can't second-guess God. Rather than praying for it to go away, it's often wiser to pray that you learn as much from it as you possibly can.

Stephen Levine

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Stephen Levine
Age: 78 †
Born: 1937
Born: July 17
Died: 2016
Died: January 17
Poet
Screenwriter
the United States of America
Stephan Levine
Often
Pray
Away
Meant
Sometimes
Praying
Much
Guess
Second
Removed
Rather
Wiser
Learn
Possibly
Pain
Illness

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If sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time.
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In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same -- Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence.
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Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. There is nothing to do but be.
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The mind creates the abyss. The heart crosses over it. Love is the bridge.
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Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.
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We are so numb we don't even know what a direct experience is. We have an experience, then we think about it and we think the thinking about it is the experience.
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Whatever prepares you for death enhances life.
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Quoting son, Noah Levine: Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to live or die, the work is always the same. (25)
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If you want the other person more than anything else in the world, you're in major trouble and the relationship is a wobbly pivot. It's different if the thing you want most in the world is truth, and your partner is the person you want most in the world.
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Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.
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How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88)
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Safety is the most unsafe spiritual path you can take. Safety keeps you numb and dead. People are caught by surprise when it is time to die. They have allowed themselves to live so little.
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That which is impermanent attracts compassion. That which is not provides wisdom. (116)
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Acting from the appropriateness of the heart, we are freed from the neediness of the mind.
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Forgiveness is mental floss! Build the capacity to forgive slowly - start with little unkind acts, otherwise you'll sabotage yourself. When we forgive, we forgive the actor, not the action.
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Letting the last breath come. Letting the last breath go. Dissolving, dissolving into vast space, the light body released from its heavier form. A sense of connectedness with all that is, all sense of separation dissolved in the vastness of being. Each breath melting into space as though it were the last.
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It is trust in our vast 'don't know' that allows room for the truth, that allows the next intuition to float to the surface.
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It doesn't matter how long you forget, only how soon you remember!
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