Month: June 2012

The ordinary mystery

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Ordinariness is a simple presence in this moment that allows the mystery of life to show itself. When Thoreau warns us to “beware of any activity that requires the purchase of new clothes” he reminds us that simplicity is the way we open to everyday wonder. While consciousness can create a variety of forms, ordinariness is interested in what is here and now. This is the ordinary mystery of breathing or of walking, the mystery of trees on our streets or of loving someone near to us. It is not based on attaining mystical states or extraordinary powers. It does  not seek to become something special, but is emptying, listening.

Jack Kornfield, Bringing home the Dharma

The basic instructions

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Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver, Sometimes

Attentive to all around

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And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light,

there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself,

and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. . . .

I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life

I too dip myself toward the immeasurable.

Mary Oliver,  Winter Hours

Sunday Quote: How we live where we live

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The value of a life does not depend on the place we occupy;

It depends on the way we occupy that place.

Therese of Lisieux

…and on finding beauty close to home

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Men build their dreams as they build their circles of friends. God is in the bits and pieces of Everyday. A kiss here and a laugh again, and sometimes tears; A pearl necklace around the neck of poverty.

Today being Bloomsday, I Felt I should post something from an Irish writer. Not Joyce, but rather I chose the poet Patrick Kavanagh, whose  poems celebrate the ways in which the most trivial things reveal God. He saw the sacred in the small details of everyday life and in the unexpected places of ordinary events.   He believed that meaning can be found within and in the mundane tasks of each day, even in the poor landscape where he lived in Ireland. For him, there was no task or moment in the day which could not become an occasion for grace and where meaning could be found.

This reminds me today to try to pay attention. When I am not conscious of this, I can be  pulled by more exciting or demanding sights on my journey, sounds, fashions, headlines, and the advertisements that are specially designed to capture my attention.  I can get distracted by my desire to be part of something more stimulating elsewhere and neglect the quiet routine in my daily life. These  big attractions always suggests that more and somewhere else is better, that our lives are not complete until we have what we feel is missing. However, often what we need is not missing; We do not have to go far, but can find it right in front of us, so we need to cultivate the vital work of noticing in our practice. As the quote below reminds us, not paying attention is a type of terminal sleepwalking through life, missing out on all the richness presented to us each day:

Heedfulness is the Path to the Deathless,heedlessness is the Path to Death.
The heedful do not die,the heedless are as dead already.
Dhammapada 21

Setting out on journeys and getting lost

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Today is Bloomsday, the day that James Joyce set for his novel Ulysses, a story of a journey across the city of Dublin, based on the wanderings of Ulysses sailing home after the Battle of Troy. It  reflects the ancient theme of life as a journey, of wisdom gained as we go along, of being blown off course and reaching a destination through paths not expected. It is the same for us: every day of our lives, winds blow and shift our direction. Some take us along with joy. Others throw us off-balance for a while, and there are winds that can blow hard and long, forcing us to keep our heads low under the gale. We all prefer to travel in sunny weather. However, what these ancient (and modern) stories tell us is that wisdom is an unexpected gift, and it frequently comes when we leave behind what we think we know or when we go through what  seems like detours or thorough getting lost. The realities of life challenge us with much that is not on our simplistic maps, and we have to let go and sometimes wander in the dark, trusting that the outcome will be revealed in time.

Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don’t be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will know the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what love is and what it is not. No authority knows and he who knows cannot tell. Love, and there is understanding.

Krisnamurti