Going Beyond Our Prisons
“The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.” Tich Nhat Hanh
Forgiveness, Freedom and Prison – Max Lucado
Max Lucado loves words – written, spoken – it does not matter. He loves to craft sentences that are memorable, inspiring and hopefully life-changing. In almost 25 years of writing, more than 100 million products—80 million books—filled with his words have been sold.
Going Beyond Our Prisons – Tetsunma Tenzin Palmo
“Everything which we see and everyone we relate to, we relate to from this tight box of our very limited judgements, prejudices, ideas, conceptions. It’s like we’re in a very small prison cell, dungeon really. And so we begin to start a new kind of direction in our lives … but the important thing is not to end up going from one prison cell into another prison cell. Even if the new prison cell has nice decoration on the wall and burns incense. It’s still a prison cell. And always the question is how to go beyond the prison, how to get out, how to be liberated.” Tetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Tetsunma Tenzin Palmo was one of the first Western women to be ordained as a nun in Tibetan Buddhism. After living for 12 years in a cave in the Himalayas, three of which she was in full retreat, she came out and established the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh, India. The following is an excerpt from a talk she gave at Tushita, a Mahayana Buddhist meditation centre in north India.
You We’re Born In A Prison – V For Vendetta
“You were already in a prison. You’ve been in a prison all your life. Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all… You’re in a prison, Evey. You were born in a prison. You’ve been in a prison so long, you no longer believe there’s a world outside. That’s because you’re afraid, Evey. You’re afraid because you can feel freedom closing in upon you. You’re afraid because freedom is terrifying. Don’t back away from it, Evey. Part of you understands the truth even as part pretends not to. You were in a cell, Evey. They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you’d rather die. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm and still. The door of the cage is open, Evey. All that you feel is the wind from outside.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Why Do You Stay in Prison? Rumi
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mawlānā, Mevlânâ, Mevlevî, and more popularly simply as Rūmī, was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Wikipedia
I’d Still Be In Prison – Nelson Mandela
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