Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.
Interpretation
Our actions and choices define our essence and legacy in life, and every single choice matters.
This quote emphasizes the importance of our actions throughout our lives and how they ultimately shape our identity at the time of death. It suggests that every experience, decision, and interaction contributes to who we are, reinforcing the idea that we should live with intention and awareness, as nothing is inconsequential.
In practice
In a motivational speech about living with purpose, this quote can highlight how every choice impacts our lives.
Sit, then, as if you were a mountain, with all the unshakeable, steadfast majesty of a mountain. A mountain is completely natural and at ease with itself, however strong the winds that try to bother it, however thick the dark clouds that swirl around its peak. Sitting like a mountain, let your mind rise and fly and soar
Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent.
There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death's pulses, death's heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to.
{While meditating} I sit quietly and rest in the nature of mind; I don't question or doubt whether I am in the "correct" state or not. There is no effort, only rich understanding, wakefulness, and unshakable certainty. When I am in the nature of mind, the ordinary mind is no longer there. There is no need to sustain or confirm a sense of being: I simply am.
We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.
Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can say about it: It is absolutely certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide and seek and think that no one can see them.
Not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth, but theirs.
The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.
Truth is in things, and not in words.
It is on great occasions only, and after time has been given for cool and deliberate reflection, that the real voice of the people can be known.
Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.
I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.
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