The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
"A Call for Prayer – and Action -- Against Violence in America" (2012)
The Sun My Heart (1996)
Context: We think that we have been alive since a certain point in time and that prior to that moment, our life did not exist. This distinction between life and non-life is not correct. Life is made of death, and death is made of life. We have to accept death; it makes life possible. The cells in our body are dying every day, but we never think to organize funerals for them. The death of one cell allows for the birth of another. Life and death are two aspects of the same reality. We must learn to die peacefully so that others may live. This deep meditation brings forth non-fear, non-anger, and non-despair, the strengths we need for our work. With non-fear, even when we see that a problem is huge, we will not burn out. We will know how to make small, steady steps. If those who work to protect the environment contemplate these four notions, they will know how to be and how to act.
“Happiness is the greatest hiding place for despair.”
“Love and anger are like land and sea: They meet at many different places.”
Source: The Changeling Sea
“The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable,
Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.”
Source: Medea and Other Plays: Medea / Alcestis / The Children of Heracles / Hippolytus
Of Anger
Essays (1625)
Context: To seek to extinguish anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.
