Challenges
Do not profane your mind
Express a careful, actively benevolent love
Take less from the poor
Do not profane your mind
“The mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things”
Henry David Thoreau
“When in wild, unruly crowds
We move with care to shield our broken limbs,
Likewise when we live in evil company,
Our wounded minds we should not fail to guard.
For if I carefully protect my wounds
Because I fear the hurt of cuts and bruises,
Why should I not guard my wounded mind,
For fear of being crushed beneath the cliffs of hell?”
Shantideva
Express a careful, actively benevolent love
“Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by with ugly and spiteful words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, revolting and godless, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don’t know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love.”
Feodor Dostoyevsky
Take less from the poor
“The urgent challenge facing the world is not to give more to the poor, but to take less from the poor; the rich have to get off the backs of the poor and get out of their way so that they can look after themselves.”
Satish Kumar