Mindfulness (present-moment awareness) is deliberately focusing our attention on our thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and mental activity without losing awareness of what is happening in the present moment. It is essentially being in a state ...
the Qur’ān appears to be interested in three types knowledge for man. One is the knowledge of nature which has been made subservient to man, i.e., the physical sciences. The second crucial type is the knowledge of history (and geography): the Qur�...
The clarity was startling and Samson wondered whether he was imagining these moments. Not that they hadn't happened at all, but that they had been embellished by details from elsewhere, fragments that survived the obliteration of other memories, vagr...
Mary knew God loved her. From the moment Gabriel appeared to her, Mary has a distinct sense that God’s presence was with her and His hand upon her. She didn’t understand everything that was happening, but she was certain that God would be with he...
While pity shows a lack of respect for other human beings, compassion has its roots in a deep respect for others. Pity is an emotion; compassion is a connection. Compassion sees the other as equal. Compassion happens when we care for another person e...
A natural response when people feel overwhelmed is to retreat into various forms of passivity. If we don’t try too much in life, if we limit our circle of action, we can give ourselves the illusion of control. The less we attempt, the less chances ...
Cassia. I know which life is my real one now, no matter what happens. It’s the one with you. For some reason, knowing that even one person knows my story makes things different. Maybe it’s like the poem says. Maybe this is my way of not going gen...
What happened?" Bailey asks. "That is somewhat difficult to explain," Tsukiko answers. "It is a long and complicated story." "And you're not going to tell me, are you?" She tilts her head a bit ... "No, I am not," she says. "Great," Bailey mutters un...
If looks could kill...well, Dick was already dead, so nothing would happen. But Gabriel was not laughing. "See Dick," Dick said, pointing at his chest. He then swept his hand dangerously close to mind. "Jane. Dick and Jane. Come on, you humorless jac...
How shall I typify what happened? Passion play? Somewhat. Weird tale? Indubitably. Horror story? Pretty close. Grotesque melodrama? Certainly. Black comedy? Your point of view will determine that. Perhaps it was a combination of them all... So, to th...
Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for ...
Or is it the case that no one gets over anything? Is there really that much pain and suffering continuing right now at this minute, in millions of hearts, in bodies carrying on the burden of existence, trying to smile through tears for fleeting, pass...
One learns a good deal in the school of suffering. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had had an easy life, and had not had the privilege of tasting the joys of jail and all it means." ~ Badsha Khan, quote in Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, p....
The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choi...
But there were other, vaguer, harder-to-pin-down feelings, like: a pit in the stomach that means something is either really good or really bad or both. A feeling of being old and young at once. A sense of beginnings and endings happening at the same ...
The would-be students wish to transcend books. But, ask yourselves: if someone says that books do not contain wisdom, and yet he writes books; books do not contain Sufism, and yet he continues to publish books on Sufism, what is really happening? It ...
I would often sit in the corner of the room wearing Dad's massive headphones, carefully replaying the records time after time. It was something I did frequently throughout my childhood with music, comedy and film, inspiring my own creative imaginatio...
All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way...
Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It is like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. Things will go where they are supposed to go if you just l...
Change can be accommodated by any system depending on its rate, Crake used to say. Touch your head to a wall, nothing happens, but if the same head hits the wall at ninety miles an hour, it's red paint. We're in a speed tunnel, Jimmy. When the water'...
I want to see the world without explaining away its mystery by calling things wicked, righteous, sinful, and good. I want to erase in myself the easy explanations, the always mendacious explanations about why things happen the way they do, and in thi...
