Leaves on a Tree

Greg Palenka

Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.

~ Alan Watts

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It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.

~ St. Teresa of Ávila

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We think that the earth is the earth and we are something outside of the earth. But in fact we are inside of the earth. Imagine that the earth is the tree and we are a leaf. The earth is not the environment, something outside of us that we need to care for. The earth is us. Just as your parents, ancestors, and teachers are inside you, the earth is in you. Taking care of the earth, we take care of ourselves.

When we see that the earth is not just the environment, that the earth is in us, at that moment you can have real communion with the earth. But if we see the earth as only the environment, with ourselves in the center, then we only want to do something for the earth in order for us to survive. But that is not enough. That is a dualistic way of seeing.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

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With the dissolution of the personal ‘I’, personal suffering disappears. What remains is the great sadness of compassion.