Simply by sitting

"Sometimes, simply by sitting, the soul collects wisdom." 


- Zen proverbs

Just relax

"Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer."


- William S. Burroughs

Be still

You need not do anything.

Remain sitting at your table and listen.

You need not even listen, just wait.

You need not even wait, just learn to be quiet, still and solitary.

And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked.

It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

- Franz Kafka

Let go

This is a path of letting go

So there will be room to live

If we hold on to opinions,

our minds will become dull and useless

Let go of opinions.

If we hold on to possessions,

we will always be at risk.

Let go of possessions.

If we hold on to ego,

we will continue to suffer.

Let go of ego.

Working without thought of praise or blame

is the way of true contentment.

- Lao Tzu

A place

"A place of one's own - where one can be alone - is essential. And that place, however small and humble or large and spacious, should be made one's very own in the fullest sense of the phrase. That means not only should it be sacred to one's self, but it should be used as an expression of one's personality.. It is no small pleasure, bit by bit, to make the room, by well-thought-out additions, more efficient, more comfortable, more native to one's self, until it exactly expresses what one is and what one wants to do there, and reaches the acme of usefulness, beauty and pleasure for its occupant. For just as the first must have its water, and the bird must have its air, so you and i must have the immediate environment native to us for comfort, pleasure, and harmonious self-development." 


- C.G.L. Du Cann, Teach yourself to Live, 1955