In the final talk of 2025, Zach focuses on what is most important and most essential: the path of loving everyone. Setting our intention is the first and most important step. Then we can tend the garden of the heart and mind by taking care of our kindness and compassion while rooting out the weeds of hatred, ill-will, and delusion.
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Quotes from the episode:
“Others will be cruel; we will not be cruel. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will kill or harm living beings; we will not harm beings. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will be greedy; we will not be greedy. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will speak falsely, maliciously; we will speak truthfully and kindly. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will be envious; we will not be envious. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will be arrogant; we will not be arrogant. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will be unmindful; we shall establish mindful presence. Thus we will incline our hearts.
Others will lack wisdom; we shall cultivate wisdom. Thus we will incline our hearts.”
– Buddhist Prayer
“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.”
– Patanjali
“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
3.18
May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,
A guide for those who journey on the road.
For those who wish to go across the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.
3.19
May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,
And a lamp for those who long for light;
For those who need a resting place, a bed;
For all who need a servant, may I be their slave.
3.20
May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,
A word of power and the supreme healing;
May I be the tree of miracles,
And for every being the abundant cow.
– Shantideva
“Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.”
– Henri Nouwen
“Someone asked a Tibetan lama if he was afraid that by breathing in others’ suffering during tonglen meditation practice, he would catch it. To this he replied that nothing would make him happier than to take on their pain so they could be free of it. When someone can say this, a profound shift has taken place. His greatest happiness comes from realizing the equality of himself and others. Whatever pain he experiences in the process is not a deterrent.”
– Pema Chodron
“However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, do something wonderful for the one who hates you, and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them. For that will reveal your identity as children of your heavenly Father. He is kind to all by bringing the sunrise to warm and rainfall to refresh whether a person does what is good or evil.”
– Matthew 5:44-45
“Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: ‘Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of goodwill, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with goodwill and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing world with an awareness imbued with goodwill—abundant, enlarged, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.
– Majjhima Nikāya
“In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,
I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.
In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.
– School Prayer By Diane Ackerman
