“Life is a gift which we have not earned and for which we cannot pay. There is no necessity that there be a universe, no inevitability about a world moving towards life and then self-awareness. There might have been … nothing at all. Since we have not earned J. S. Bach – or friends or crocuses – the best we can do is to express our gratitude for the undeserved gifts, and do our share of the work of creation.”

Robert R. Walsh (1937 – 2016), Unitarian Universalist minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison… If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible…

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor.”

Henry David Thoreau, Transcendentalist Unitarian writer, born on this day in 1817, who was imprisoned briefly for refusing to pay his poll tax as a protest against slavery.

“The great way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences.
Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear.
When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction, heaven and earth are set apart.
If you want to realize the truth, don’t be for or against.
The struggle between good and evil is the primal disease of the mind.
Not grasping the deeper meaning, you just trouble your minds serenity.
As vast as infinite space, it is perfect and lacks nothing.
But because you select and reject, you can’t perceive its true nature.
Don’t get entangled in the world; don’t lose yourself in emptiness.
Be at peace in the oneness of things, and all errors will disappear by themselves.
If you don’t live the Tao, you fall into assertion or denial.
Asserting that the world is real, you are blind to its deeper reality;
denying that the world is real, you are blind to the selflessness of all things.
The more you think about these matters, the farther you are from the truth.
Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can’t go.
Returning to the root, you find the meaning;
chasing appearances, you lose their source.
At the moment of profound insight, you transcend both appearance and emptiness.
Don’t keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions.
For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears.
With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely.
All at once you are free, with nothing left to hold on to.
All is empty, brilliant, perfect in its own being.
In the world of things as they are, there is no self, no non self.
If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is “Not-two.”
In this “Not-two” nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded.
The enlightened of all times and places have entered into this truth.
In it there is no gain or loss; one instant is ten thousand years.
There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes.
The tiny is as large as the vast when objective boundaries have vanished;
the vast is as small as the tiny when you don’t have external limits.
Being is an aspect of non-being; non-being is no different from being.
Until you understand this truth, you won’t see anything clearly.
One is all; all are one. When you realize this, what reason for holiness or wisdom?
The mind of absolute trust is beyond all thought, all striving,
is perfectly at peace, for in it there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.”

Seng-ts’an, third patriarch of Zen, 6th century China

“When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?

For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole…

What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…”

Engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla, born on this day in 1856

“Grant us to walk in beauty, seeing the uncommon in the common, aware of the great stream of wonder in which we and all things move. Give us to see more deeply into the great things of our heritage, and the simple but sublime truths hidden in every leaf and every rock. May our hands treat with respect the things which You have created. May we walk with other creatures as sharers with them in the one life that flows from You.”

Jacob Trapp (1899 – 1992), Unitarian minister

“I am the breath of the Most High, blanketing the earth like mist, filling the sky with towering clouds.
I encompass distant galaxies, and walk in the innermost abyss.
Over crest and trough, over sea and land, over every people and nation I hold sway…
Before time, at the beginning of beginnings, God created Me. And I shall remain forever…
I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon.
I grew tall like a palm tree in En-gaddi, and as a rose plant in Jericho, as a fair olive tree in a pleasant field, and grew up as a plane tree by the water.
I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and camel’s thorn, and I yielded a pleasant odour like the best myrrh, like galbanum, onyx, and storax, and like the fragrance of frankincense in the tabernacle.
Like a terebinth I spread out my branches, and my branches are glorious and graceful.
Like a vine I caused loveliness to bud, and my blossoms became glorious and abundant fruit.
I am the Mother of true love, wonder, knowledge, and holy hope.
Beyond time, I am yet given to time, a gift to all My children: to all that He has named.
Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my produce.
For the remembrance of me is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance sweeter than the honeycomb.
Those who eat me will hunger for more, and those who drink me will thirst for more…
At first I was like a narrow stream from a river, and as a shallow brook into a garden.
I said, I will water my best garden, I will moisten my finest beds,
Then my brook became a river, and my river became a sea.
I make instruction shine forth like the dawn, its shimmering seen from afar.
I pour out teaching like prophecy, and leave it for future generations.
Know this: I do not labour for myself alone, but for all you who seek Wisdom.”

From The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus), chapter 24

“There is a bird on this body tree
That dances in the ecstasy of life.
No one knows where it is,
And who could ever know
What its music means?
It nests where branches cast deep shadow;
It comes in the dusk and flies away at dawn
And never says a word of what it intends.

No one can tell me anything
About this bird that sings in my blood.
It isn’t coloured or colourless;
It doesn’t have a form, or outline;
It sits always in the shadow of love.
It lives within the Unreachable, the Boundless, the Eternal
And no one can tell when it comes or when it goes.

Kabir says, “Fellow seeker,
The mystery of this bird
Is marvellous and profound.
Be wise; struggle to know
Where this bird comes to rest.”

Kabir (15th century India)

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”

Frida Kahlo, born on this day in 1907

“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”

Isaac Newton, whose Principia, outlining his laws of motion and universal gravitation, was published the by Royal Society on this day in 1687

“We have become used to the possession of certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, among others, in our modern world. These are rights that we take for granted, that are enshrined in constitutions and maintained by the law of the land; and yet even within civilized societies there are many who do not enjoy these rights. The poor, the disadvantaged, and others who live on the margins of society need the actions and voices of those who honour the commitment to the alienable rights that we should all enjoy.”

Caitlin Matthews