Stories and our individual lives share the same elements: protagonists, antagonists, conflict, plot, action, climax, and resolution.  What are the atomic components that make these narrative elements possible? 

"Conventional gratitude is based on distinguishing what we like from what we do not, good fortune from bad fortune, success from failure, opportunities from obstacles. By practicing conventional gratitude, we may begin to better appreciate times of good fortune and opportunity. But what about all the obstacles, unpleasant people, and difficulties in our life? "

~ Acharya Judy Lief

"The process of finding the truth may not be a process by which we feel increasingly better and better. It may be a process by which we look at things honestly, sincerely, truthfully, and that may or may not be an easy thing to do."

~ Adyashanti

"I think that the reason they want to have music in a funeral home is that the silence lets our mind just be free to run around with whatever thoughts that we have. And if somebody's in a funeral home, they're very likely to be having sad thoughts."

~ David Young

Five strategies for reducing travel stress -- especially around the holidays -- by Allan Lokos, from "Peace While Traveling? Not Impossible," by Rachel Lee Harris, The New York Times, December 15, 2011.

isn’t there some value in motivating ourselves through unpleasant tasks and activities by imagining the relief that will follow? Is there really anything wrong with taking a bit of comfort during a tedious meeting or lecture on Wednesday morning by imagining how much fun we’re planning to have on Friday evening?

“The brain processes musical nuance in many ways, it turns out. Edward W. Large, a music scientist at Florida Atlantic University, scanned the brains of people with and without experience playing music as they listened to two versions of a Chopin étude: one recorded by a pianist, the other stripped down to a literal version of what Chopin wrote, without human-induced variations in timing and dynamics.”

“You gotta find your calling —
Even in the dark.”

"Meditation as a path to enlightenment could be described as merely setting the stage for nature/grace to eliminate from you what needs to be eliminated."

~ Shinzen Young

"You'll find lot of communities which are based on the word, thus to say we speak of an ideal together and we are committed to an ideal or to a vision and so on. But L'Arche is based on body and on suffering bodies."

~ Jean Vanier