In the Middle Ages people were well aware of the inexhaustible power that arises simply from sitting still... The inner quiet which arises when the body is motionless and in its best possible form can become the source of transcendental experience. By emptying ourselves of all those matters that normally occupy us, we become receptive to Greater Being. True enlightenment has the effect of so fundamentally affecting and shaking the whole person that they themselves, as well as their total physical existence in the world, is completely transformed.
~ from "On Practicing Tranquility" by Karlfried Graf von Durckheim in Parabola, 1996
Both of our families had ben crippled to some degree by prejudice, personal trauma, and tragedy, but in the most important ways both ranches had endured. So it wasn't what we did for a living that counted, nor what kind of china we dined on, nor what our houses looked like. Nor, in this one sense, did our skin color even matter very much. What counted most through the generations far more than any other factor, was how we treated those we loved and how well we loved That seemed the transcendent lesson or moral my search had revealed
