November 27

If you are overcome by passion, remember that your passionate desire does not constitute your soul but only a dark coating, which temporarily conceals your true qualities from you.

1

Be your own lamp. Be your own refuge. Stay true to the light of your lamp and seek no other refuge.

— Sutta Pitaka

2

The soul can be compared to a transparent sphere, illuminated from within by its own light. This fire is not only its source of every kind of light and truth, it also illuminates everything that is outside of it. In its natural state, it is free and happy, and only a passion for external things can agitate and darken its smooth surface, refracting and disturbing the light.

— Marcus Aurelius

3

All people have feelings of charity, shame and hatred for vice. By means of self-education, everyone can cultivate these feelings or let them wither. Like the limbs of the body, these feelings are a part of the human being. And, just like the limbs of the body, these feelings can be developed. Beautiful trees grow on Mount Nikonshau. When their trunks are cut, new shoots constantly sprout; if we send cattle over them, then the mountain will be made naked. A naked mountain is not natural. It is the same with spiritual corruption: if we let low passions eat the noble shoots of charity, shame and hatred for vice in our heart, would we then say as a result of this that none of these feelings exist in the human heart? To know the law of Heaven means to develop the highest qualities of our nature.

— Mencius

4

The spring of goodness is in you, within you. It will not cease murmuring however much you dig at it.

— Marcus Aurelius

5

The soul of man is a mirror, wherein may be seen, darkly, the image of the mind of God.

— John Ruskin

The moment you feel a passionate desire, summon within yourself an awareness of your divinity. The moment you feel a darkening of your divinity, know that you are possessed by passions—fight them.