'Wherefore, brethren, thus must ye train yourselves : Liberation of the will through love will develop, we will often practice it, we will make it vehicle and base, take our stand upon it, store it up, throughly set it going.'
It's been a hard lesson for me , but contrary quite frankly to what is a common practice in politics, I can tell from my own experience, it is better to stay away from personalities.
In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. This is a helpful pointer for our everyday presence-practice. Can you catch yourself angrily defending your point of view or attacking the other person's? There's the ego.
Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south - let all Americans - let all lovers of liberty everywhere - join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.
Study and practice are both very important, but they must go hand in hand. Faith without knowledge is not sufficient. Faith needs to be supported by reason. However intellectual understanding that is not applied in practice is also of little use. Whatever we learn from study we need to apply sincerely in our daily lives.
Whatever forms of meditation you practice, the most important point is to apply mindfulness continuously, and make a sustained effort. It is unrealistic to expect results from meditation within a short period of time. What is required is continuous sustained effort.
The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.
Even while Jerusalem was standing and the Jews were at peace with us, the practice of their sacred rites was at variance with the glory of our empire, the dignity of our name, the customs of our ancestors.
The crash of 2008 was driven in no small part by unfair practices in the mortgage industry which led to many consumers being trapped in loans they didn't understand and couldn't afford.