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Building Suffering and Laughter
You think it will never happen to you, impossible for it to happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom those things will never happen, and then, one by one, they all start to happen to you just like they happen to anyone else.
— Paul Auster | 1947–2024
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Mythically, the center of one thing leads to the center of everything. Seen in this way, the illness of one person becomes the ailment through which all that ails a community can be addressed; the wound in one person can become the door through which everyone can find the center of life again. Thus, the afflicted one becomes the center of the community and the opportunity for everyone to commune with the origins of life. That is why people used to say that the afflicted are holy; they are one way through which holiness and healing keep trying to enter this world.
— Michael Meade
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Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for transformation. Use it!
Within the spiritual journey, you understand that Suffering becomes something that has been given to you to show you where your mind is still stuck. It’s a vehicle to help you go to work. That’s why it’s called Grace.
— RAM DASS
