Harmony Quote

People say, “What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time”

– Dorothy  Day

It is repeated acts of unkindness that make us unloving and repeated acts of kindness that make us kind.  How do I  become patient? By trying to become patient every day, little by little, poco a poco. 

We shouldn’t expect to go to bed one night the most impatient man or woman in the country and get up in the morning flooded with patience. 

Every day, every night it takes continuous practice, continuous striving. If you are doing everything to be patient, you are going to become inexhaustibly patient. If you are struggling everywhere to become loving, you are going to be unfailingly loving. 

In the gradual development on the spiritual path, it is better to concede that most of us start with a good deal of inertia. This shows itself as an attitude of avoiding challenges, shutting our eyes to the problems that confront the world. 

This inertia is slowly transformed into energy, just as ice when heated becomes water that flows. – which can be used for irrigation and harnessed for any useful purpose that we approve of.  In the same way all that locked up energy can be released. But it requires steady effort, one step at a time. 

From Words To Live By by Eknath Easwaran, founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, copyright 2005; reprinted by permission of Nilgiri Press, P. O. Box 256, Tomales, Ca  94971, www.bmcm.org.