“When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Bashō we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash—at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.”

— Thomas Merton
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“We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”

— Henri Matisse
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“Passion and peace sing to the sky; both stars and stillness paint the night. Neither the sleeping moon nor the hunting owl hears disagreement in their song, only harmony. We are an echo of those constellations. We are matter, burning brightly with life, and we are the stillness within the soul’s breath between. Our passion doesn’t shatter peace. All that we feel is borne by the stillness peace breathes. Nor does peace extinguish feeling. Peace is the space to step back and see the beauty of the flame. Without notes lighting the silence, there is no music and no dance…and what is music without space between the notes?”

— Quiet Lotus
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​“An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.”

— Rumi
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​“Be gentle with yourself.
You are stardust, dreaming.”

— Quiet Lotus
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