Beginners acquire new theories and techniques until their minds are cluttered with options. Advanced students forget their many options.

They allow theories and techniques they have learned to recede into the background.

Learn to unclutter your mind. Learn to simplify your work.

As you rely less and less on knowing just what to do, your work will become more direct and more powerful. You will discover that the quality of your consciousness is more potent than any technique or theory or interpretation.

Learn how fruitful the blocked group or individual suddenly becomes when  you give up trying to do just the right thing.

- John Heider, The Tao of Leadership

The wisdom of the heart can be found in any circumstance, on any planet, round or square. It arises not through knowledge or images of perfection, or by comparison and judgment, but by seeing with the eyes of wisdom and the heart of loving attention, by touching with compassion all that exists in our world.

- Jack Kornfield, Buddhist teacher, clinical psychologist, and author of 16 books which have sold 2 million copies.

To be Nisenan is to be in relationship with the land - to exist in a world where memory is rooted in place and where true knowledge is taught by the Earth herself.

To be Nisenan is not to own the land but to belong to it, to grow from it, and to change with it.

To be Nisenan is to know that, despite great upheaval and chaos, the stars carry the voices, traditions, and living culture of those who came before.

To be Nisenan is to recognize the voices of our ancestors as they echo through the stones, sing with the sounds of the rivers, and whisper to us on the winds.

- The Nisenan are a group of Native Americans and Indigenous People of California from the Yuba River and American River watersheds in Northern California and The Central Valley of California

Since patience or tolerance comes from an ability to remain firm and steadfast and not be overwhelmed by the adverse situations or conditions that one faces, one should not see tolerance or patience as a kind of weakness, or giving in, but rather as a sign of strength, coming from a deep ability to remain firm.

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We are all equal now, members of one and the same family, and the affairs of the entire world are now internal affairs

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In one sense one could define compassion as the feeling of unbearableness at the sight of other people's suffering, other sentient beings' suffering. True compassion implies the wish to put an end to others' suffering and a sense of responsibility for those who suffer.

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Whether talking about individuals or governments, the principle that must guide us is that of human rights. If we live in a country where human rights exist and are respected, we are naturally responsible for our duties and responsibilities.

- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhist Monk

Under the cover of blood,
love veils many rose gardens.
In total faith,
Love guides every lover
to the garden of the heart.
Reason says,
the world is limited in six directions,
there is no way out.
Love says,
there is a way, and I have traveled it many times.

Love guides us through travails that seem improbable, if not impossible. It does not shy away from any challenge, from any cause. It cannot. It is just love's way. Love says to us there is always another way.

- Rumi, sufi poet, mystic, and teacher and Alana Fairchild, Australian author

There is a strong link between happiness and tolerance, in so far as less  prejudice means greater happiness. The greater the social awareness and charitable involvement, the greater the happiness of the citizens.

- Matthieu Ricard, a Nepalese French writer, photographer, translator, and Buddhist monk

There are many things we can let go of. For example, we have an idea. We have an idea, like, “If I don’t have that, I’ll never feel happy”…But if we can rid ourselves of those ideas, happiness will naturally flood in. Joy and happiness will suddenly flood in. So, our ideas, our perceptions, can also be the very causes of our pain and suffering. So, we should examine whether we have any ideas, or perceptions, or prejudices, or stereotypes, that need to be let go. The more one can let go, the happier one becomes.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Thien Buddhist monk, peace activist, prolific author, poet, and teacher, who founded the Plum Village Tradition, historically recognized as the main inspiration for engaged Buddhism.

And our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy-hearted maidens, and even our little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes, and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits.

And when the last red man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe.

And when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone.

In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.

Let them be just and deal kindly with my people. For the dead are not powerless.

Dead, did I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds.

- Chief Seattle, a leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples

It is at this difficult juncture when the individual first fully appreciates his separation, deals emotionally with the impact of that reality, and is called upon to integrate his magnificence with his vulnerability. This rapproachement with reality represents the individual's first attempt to reconcile an idealized dream, which includes that illusions of symbiosis and grandiosity, with the realities of existence, which include separateness and limitation. If the environment can accept and nurture both sides of this polarity, love the wonders of an emerging person and the beauty of an open, dependent baby, the realness of the individual is bolstered, reinforced, and actualized. Then, the individual can be as magnificent as she was born to be and as weak and vulnerable as she was born to be.

- Stephen M. Johnson P.h.D., professor and chair of the faculty at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology