In this talk, Zach explores seeing our spirituality as one of cultivating positive emotion and social connection. Although we say we want love, and spending a lot of time looking for “the one,” we often aren’t ready for it. Because love asks a lot of us, it requires us to look at our own stuff and be willing to heal.
Intro Poem: part of the Drinking Roses on Sunday collection, click here to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Drinking-Roses-Sunday-words-heart/dp/1497489148/
“All other spiritual teachings are in vain if we cannot love. Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if, with our hearts, we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given.
What matters is how we live… We must make certain our path is connected with our heart. In beginning a genuine spiritual journey, we have to stay much closer to home, to focus directly on what is right here in front of us, to make sure that our path is connected with our deepest love.”
– Jack Kornfield
“There is never a dull moment if you are actually in touch with reality as it is.”
– Chogyam Trungpa
“And here I thought the path of love
would look like love. Like kindness.
Like generosity. Like gentleness.
Instead it looks like me being bothered
by the sound of loud chewing. Me
wanting praise. Me needing to feel
loved. Hello me. How elegantly love
has arranged for me to meet
all the parts of me that would stand
in love’s way. How easily
it shows me I’ve thought of love
as a destination. But here is love
with no expectation. Here is love
with no name, no locus. Here
is love with no face, no shape, no
promise, no vow, no hope.
Here is love as itself, surging
and flowing, love as itself insisting
on love, love as itself eroding
all those layers of me that still
think they know something about love
(and love holds me while I rail
and love throws me back in the stream
and love is what is still here when I am not).”
– The Path of Love, Rosemerry Trommer
“A mind that is seeking security can never know what love is.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.”
– Chögyam Trungpa
“Who is it that’s unhappy? The one who finds fault.”
– John Welwood
“To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.”
– Mark Nepo
“You cannot love what you are not constantly discovering anew.”
– Anthony De Mello
