Quotes from Christina Feldman

Karma is simply the law of cause and effect. If you plant an apple seed, you don't a get a mango tree. If we practice hatred or greed, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly. If we practice awareness or loving-kindness, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly." "We are heirs to the results of our actions, to the intentions we bring to every moment we initiate. We make ripples upon the ocean of the universe through our very presence.

Compassion is a fundamental principle of meditation. Meditation is not a narcissistic, self-interested path. It provides the foundation for love, integrity, compassion, respect and sensitivity (Feldman, 1998, p.2).

The path to the goal is portrayed in our fairy tales. We hear the ceaseless messages of the necessity of us being endlessly giving, beautiful, and selfless if we wish to find the fulfillment of our dreams, salvation. We learn through the absorption of our myths that desirability is synonymous with worthiness and goodness synonymous with acceptability.

Our lives are enriched by generosity, forgiveness, and magnanimity. It is only when the cultivation of these virtues is motivated by the dream of salvation by someone else that these virtues become problematic.

Freedom and simplicity are close companions; simplicity teaches us the ways to release the layers of complexity and confusion that blind us.

There is an old Chinese saying, "Write your sorrows in sand and etch your joys in stone.

The birds have vanished into the sky, And now the last cloud fades away. We sit together, the mountain and I, until only the mountain remains. LI PO

Rumi, the great Sufi poet, wrote: Today like every other day we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

perpetually positioning our "self" in relationship to other "selves"—