Quotes

‘There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer;
no disease that enough love will not heal;
no door that enough love will not open;
no gulf that enough love will not bridge;
no wall that enough love will not throw down;
no sin that enough love will not redeem.’
– Adaptation of The Sermon on the Mount

‘Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honour and comfort me once again.’
– Psalms 71: 20-21

‘The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’
– Psalm 23

‘Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.’
– Psalm 30: 5

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’
– Matthew 5: 4

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
– Matthew 11: 25-30

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.’
– John 14: 1- 4

‘And he said: These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’
– Revelation 7: 15-17

‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’
– 1 Corinthians 55

‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’
– Genesis 3:19

‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted.’

– Ecclesiastes 3:1

‘Say: Surely my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are for Allah, the Lord of the worlds.’
– Quran 6:162

‘It is He Who gives life and causes death. And when He decided upon a thing He says to it only: ‘Be!’ – and it is.’
– Quran 40:68

‘Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going –
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.’
– The Tibetan Book of the Dead

‘Now when the bardo of dharmata dawns upon me,
I will abandon all fear and terror,
I will recognize whatever appears as the display of my own Rigpa,
And know it to be the natural appearance of this bardo;
Now that I have reached this crucial point,
I will not fear the peaceful and wrathful deities, that arise from the nature of my very own mind.’
– The Tibetan Book of the Dead

“A few days before his death, Kozan called his pupils together, ordered them to bury him without ceremony, and forbade them to hold services in his memory. He wrote this poem on the morning of his death, laid down his brush and died sitting upright.”

‘Like dew drops
on a lotus leaf
I vanish.’

‘This thing called “corpse” we dread so much is living with us here and now.’
– Milarepa

‘This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.’
– Buddha

‘May I be a protector to those without protection,
A leader for those who journey,
And a boat, a bridge, a passage
For those desiring the further shore.
May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away.
May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.
Just like space
And the great elements such as earth,
May I always support the life
Of all boundless creatures.
And until they pass away from pain
May I also be the source of life
For all the realms of varied beings
That reach unto the end of space.’
– Shantideva, Buddhist poet

‘Now when the bardo of dying dawns upon me,
I will abandon all grasping, yearning and attachment,
Enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching
And eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa;
As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion.’
– Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

‘Of all footprints
That of the elephant is supreme;
Of all mindfulness meditations
That on death is supreme.’
– Buddha

‘Body lying flat on a last bed,
Voices whispering a few last words,
Mind watching a final memory glide past:
When will that drama come for you?’
– The Seventh Dalai Lama

‘Now all the connections in this life between us are ending,
I am an aimless beggar who is going to die as he likes,
Do not feel sad for me, but go on praying always.
These words are my heart talking, talking to help you;
Think of them as a cloud of lotus-blossoms, and you in your devotion
As bees plunging into them to suck from them their transcendent joy.’
– Longchenpa, The Immaculate Radiance, 14th century

‘Human beings spend all their lives preparing, preparing, preparing…Only to meet the next life unprepared.’
– Drakpa Gyaltsen, 12th century

‘In Tibetan the word for body is lu, which means ‘something you leave behind’ like baggage. Each time we say lu it reminds us we are only travellers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body.’
– Namygal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

‘Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead. Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable.’
– Bhagavad Gita

‘As a man casts off worn-out garments and puts on new ones, so the embodied soul casts off the worn-out body and enters other new ones.’
– Bhagavad Gita

‘The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. There was never a time when you and I and all the kings gathered here have not existed and nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist.’
– Bhagavad Gita

‘Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, ‘Thy will be done.’ We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.’
– Swami Vivekananda

‘If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ”wandering to find home,” why should we not look forward to the arrival?’
– C.S Lewis

‘The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.’
– C.S Lewis

‘God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain.’
– C.S Lewis

‘We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told: ”Blessed are they who mourn.”’
– C.S Lewis

‘Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.’
– C.S Lewis

‘Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.’
– C.S Lewis

‘Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.’
– C.S Lewis

‘Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.’
– C.S Lewis

‘If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.’
– C.S Lewis

‘It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.’
– C.S Lewis

‘No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.’
– C.S Lewis

‘You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.’
– C.S Lewis

‘Lord, you are my lover,
My longing,
My flowing stream
My sun,
And I am your reflection.’
– Mechtild of Magdeburg, 13th century

‘And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.’
– Mechtild of Magdeburg, 13th century

‘Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.’
– Martin Luther