Mark Nepo Quotes

Each of us carries some wisdom waiting to be discovered at the center of our experience. Everything we meet, if faced and held, reveals a part of that wisdom.

Every human has an unfathomable gift that only meeting life head on will reveal.

When we deny what comes through us, it defines us. When we honestly face what comes through us, then who we are grows.

Wakefulness is not a destination but a song the human heart keeps singing, the way birds keep singing at the first sign of light.

Intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.

We can never be prepared for everything. No one person can anticipate all of life. In fact, overpreparation is yet another way to wall ourselves in from life.

Grief can be a slow ache that never seems to stop rising, yet as we grieve, those we love mysteriously become more and more a part of who we are.

The real & lasting practice for each of us is to remove what obstructs us so we can be who we are.

The greedy one gathered all the cherries, while the simple one tasted all the cherries in one.

Pursue the obstacle It will set you free

The flower doesn't dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.

Rather than finding heaven on earth, we are asked to release heaven by living on earth.

Repetition is not failure. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind.

Part of the blessing and challenge of being human is that we must discover our own true nature.

…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.” (p.275)

Tragedy stays alive by feeling what's been done to us, while peace comes alive by living with the results.

To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.

When we heal ourselves, we heal the world.

All the buried seeds crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can't see.

…there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.

Just opening quietly for moments everyday can create a path by which life can reach us, the way rain carves a little stream in the earth by which the smallest flowers are watered.

The broken door lets in the light. The broken heart lets in the world.

We are born with only one obligation - to be completely who we are.

Like roots finding water, we always wind up moving towards what sustains us.

To journey without being changed, is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim.

We think that accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will.

The key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.

To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.

No bird can fly without opening its wings, and no one can love without exposing their hearts.