We need only sail in natural waters.

Back in the days of sailing vessels, British and American sea captains were faced with a peculiar problem. In crossing westward from England to Boston, the voyage was much slower than when crossing eastward from Boston to England. In fact, the westward crossing took an additional two weeks, which represented considerable loss of time and energy. The owners of the vessels carried their problem to Benjamin Franklin, who was Deputy Postmaster General at that time. Franklin, in turn, consulted a veteran sea captain named Timothy Folger. 

"It takes two weeks longer," explained Folger, ''because you don't

Franklin/Folger Chart

understand the Gulf Stream. When crossing westward it flows against a ship, costing as much as three miles an hour. Don't fight the Gulf Stream; get outside of it and into the free sea."
We need not fight our unwanted habits. We need only sail in natural waters. VH

Guy Finley: Being unhappy is for people who believe the only way to climb out of a mud hole is by digging deeper into it.

There is a recurring theme that you see over and over in stories, songs, poems, and in human contacts. That theme is, 'I miss you.' In the social ordinary world, the girl writes, 'I miss you,' to the soldier boy overseas or the man’s wife has to be gone out of town for a while so he says 'I miss you,' on the telephone, so we miss so many things on the everyday level, the home-sweet-home, the gang down on the corner, the pizza parlor closes and it breaks our heart.

There is another kind of missing and you know it very well. It’s throbbing. It’s always with you. It is always with you whether you are married or single, successful or a flop in societies’ eyes. You always feel — yes you do - and you know it as if something is missing and the reason you feel that way it because there is something absent from you which if you obtained it the heartache and pain of the absenteeism would vanish. VH

Guy Finley: At the root of all fearful questions that seem to seek a way out of any sorrow lies a secret assumption, one that keeps us defeated and going around in sad circles. And the deception is... [continued]

All self-examination should be done unemotionally. Don't blame yourself or dislike yourself for anything. Self-blame only creates new waves of unprofitable emotions. Instead, look at the experience with a calm and curious mind. Remember that your objective is not to find fault with anything, but to scientifically look at the event with profit as your goal.
It helps to examine an unrewarding experience in the way that a wise cook might look over a cake recipe that didn't turn out so well. The cook wouldn't get angry at either himself or the recipe, rather, he would study the entire process. He would review the ingredients, check the oven temperature, and so on. That would break up the previous negative process.VH

Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids was one of the first to conceptualize canonical Buddhist writings in terms of psychology. Buddhism and psychology overlap in theory and in practice. A variety of teachers, clinicians and writers such as D.T. Suzuki, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, Alan Watts, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Sharon Salzberg have attempted to bridge and integrate psycho-analysis and Buddhism.