“Religion is based . . . mainly upon fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death . . . Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the . . . passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation.” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

“Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know, we become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge, where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so, generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. ” (Lord Bertrand Russell)

As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.
(Eckhart Tolle)

Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.
(Calvin Coolidge)

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
(Pericles)

Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings.
(Tao Te Ching)

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
(Victor Frankl)

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor. (Thich Nhat Hanh, Stepping into Freedom: Rules of Monastic Practice for Novices)

John Kabat-Zinn is a leader in the introduction of meditation practices to Western audiences, including the implementation of mindfulness practice within counseling and psychotherapy practice.

John’s 45 minute body scan exercise can be found at last.fm:

http://www.last.fm/music/Jon+Kabat-Zinn/_/Body+Scan

Another example of body scan meditation (by a different practitioner) can be found in two parts at YouTube (see the links, below).

YouTube: Part One of Two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJjafJouvt4

YouTube: Part Two of Two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gpQ21CJmQw

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humour to console him for what he is.
(Francis Bacon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIlxoV6uG3Q

185 people lost their lives and buildings were destroyed, but the spirit of the people of Canterbury is something of which we can be proud.