star mandalas at Izbuc Monastery

Romania, Bihor County, Calugari Village, Izbuc Monastery

“Let love lead your soul. Make it a place to retire to, a kind of monastery cave, a retreat for the deepest core of your being.” Farid al-Din Attar

Izbuc Monastery, located at the foot of the Codru Moma Mountains, part of the Apuseni Mountains, about 100 kilometers away from the city of Oradea, is known for the spring that gushes forth intermittently between the stones and whose waters are healing.

The church, also called the “Cathedral of the Codru Moma Mountains” in the village called Calugari.

“Water is the mirror that has the ability to show us what we cannot see. It is a blueprint for our reality, which can change with a single, ripple.”

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water, my friend.”

Bruce Lee

“The water remembers everything, every touch, every tear, every moment.”

“L”et the water settle; you will see the moon and stars mirrored in your being.”

“Silence is difficult and arduous; it is not to be played with. It isn’t something that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware — aware of your speech, aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Water is the soul of the Earth. It is the essence of life itself.”

When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.

Jack Kornfield