Source: The Witch Of Portobello
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (2005)
Source: The Life of Poetry (1949), p. 169; part of this statement is also used in the "Introduction"
Context: In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all of need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up our fullness; we turn, and act. We begin to be aware of correspondences, of the acknowledgement in us of necessity, and of the lands.
And poetry, among all this — where is there a place for poetry?
If poetry as it comes to us through action were all we had, it would be very much. For the dense and crucial moments, spoken under the stress of realization, full-bodied and compelling in their imagery, arrive with music, with our many kinds of theatre, and in the great prose. If we had these only, we would be open to the same influences, however diluted and applied. For these ways in which poetry reaches past the barriers set up by our culture, reaching toward those who refuse it in essential presence, are various, many-meaning, and certainly — in this period — more acceptable. They stand in the same relation to poetry as applied science to pure science.
Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
BBC News: "John McAfee: Addict, coder, runaway" https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24441931 (11 October 2013)
President Hugo Chavez's Speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The statement "The future of all life, including our own, depends on our mindful steps." and much of the theme of this essay also occur later in his writings, including The World We Have : A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology (2008), Ch. 1 : The Bells of Mindfulness, p. 3
The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: All life is impermanent. We are all children of the Earth, and, at some time, she will take us back to herself again. We are continually arising from Mother Earth, being nurtured by her, and then returning to her. Like us, plants are born, live for a period of time, and then return to the Earth. When they decompose, they fertilize our gardens. Living vegetables and decomposing vegetables are part of the same reality. Without one, the other cannot be. After six months, compost becomes fresh vegetables again. Plants and the Earth rely on each other. Whether the Earth is fresh, beautiful, and green, or arid and parched depends on the plants.
It also depends on us. Our way of walking on the Earth has a great influence on animals and plants. We have killed so many animals and plants and destroyed their environments. Many are now extinct. In turn, our environment is now harming us. We are like sleepwalkers, not knowing what we are doing or where we are heading. Whether we can wake up or not depends on whether we can walk mindfully on our Mother Earth. The future of all life, including our own, depends on our mindful steps.
Interview with KALX radio at Vacaville http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G179-qOvCE8
Context: A lot of you young people, even though you go through college, you still don’t understand that courtroom. That courtroom is the court of the kings and lords of the world. We as human beings can invoke the ground here called the United States of America. And the reason our system has perpetuated in such a way is because all the powers of Europe and England and monarchies and all those big people; we have come over here and started another world where each man in the United States has that power because he has that courtroom. That courtroom belongs to every human being in the United States. And if you take that courtroom away from one human being, you’re taking that courtroom away from all human beings. Then what follows is you got kings and queens of yesterday – they’re gonna come and play croquet with your heads. They’re gonna take your courtrooms. They’re gonna take your money and they’re gonna take your country. They’re gonna take your resources. They’re gonna rip you off in every way you can think of because you didn’t give your own children the benefit of the courtroom that your fathers fought in battles and died for.
