The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.
Wendell Berry
We can only make one choice. Throughout our lives, we do only one thing – again and again, moment by moment, year by year. It is how we live our days, and it is how we shape our lives. The choice is this: what is the next right thing for us to do? Where, in this moment, shall we choose to place our time and attention? Do we stay or move, speak or keep silent, attend to this person, that task, move in this or that direction? …Our choices are small, quiet, intimate things that flow from us as water from a mountain spring, simple, endless, each thimble of water tumbling into the next, creating a small stream that somehow…inevitably, finds its way down the mountain to the sea.
Wayne Muller, A life of Being, Having and Doing Enough
Life begins in darkness and ends in darkness. In the beginning, there was only darkness. Darkness is a mystery; it evokes curiosity and fear of the unknown, and at the same time it brings us into the embrace of reality. This reality is all around us, pregnant with the existential truths of life. As the sacred story states, ‘The earth was empty and without form and darkness covered the face of the deep.’ Out of this darkness God commanded the revelation of light. This light was not the sun or the moon but light that came from within the darkness. This light is an integral and essential part of the darkness. That darkness at the heart of creation has its counterpart in the darkness living at the core of each of us.
In the dark moments and struggles of our lives, we often realize the beauty and the power that lie deep within us. This darkness sheds light on our external world and helps us not only cope with, but also live effectively and more fully in, the painful situations of our lives. This light comes from the darkness at our core. This light — the light within the dark cave of our being — draws us back to the very source of life.
Paul Coutinho, Sacred Darkness: Encountering Divine Love In Life’s Darkest Places
As you meditate, keep bringing your attention back to what is happening in the moment: the breath, a feeling in the body, a thought, an emotion, or even awareness itself. As we become more mindful and accepting of what’s going on, we find—both in meditation and in our lives—that we are less controlled by the forces of denial or addiction, two forces that drive much of life. In the meditative process we are more willing to see whatever is there, to be with it but not be caught by it. We are learning to let go.
Joseph Goldstein, Here, Now, Aware: Practicing Mindfulness
There is some interest in some circles about ancient calendars and texts and the end of the world happening these days. Now I do not wish to comment on the accuracy of such predictions but simply to see what such an interest can reveal in some people. There is a lot of uncertainty and instability in the world today, stemming from human tragedies, economic problems, the difficulties between different views of culture and values, tension between religions and within religions, and from storms and natural disasters. And there are always uncertainties in our personal lives. Things change. People close to us get ill or move away. This can make us feel very insecure. One way of dealing with not-knowing and with the fundamental unease that is at the basis of our existence is to seek something outside, or someone stronger than us, to steady us on this uncertain ground. So we provide an explanation for things we cannot understand and that explanation, even if it means the end of the world, seems preferable to not knowing why some things happen. It is a radical way of dealing with the fact that, at a fundamental level, there is a groundlessness inherent in our existence. It is also an extreme variant of our common, everyday way of working with the unsatisfactory nature of individual moments – we “lean towards” something in the future, and this distracts us from this moment and how it actually is. What we are trying in our practice is not to focus on any future, “better” or “more secure” moment, but on this one, even if it is not as we would want it. The best way to prepare for the future – or the “end of the world” if you like – is to care for this moment and then the next moment. There are enough distractions in the world today, including these spiritual or mythical ones, pulling us away from noticing where our life is, now.
Meanwhile, here we are, missing the fullness of the present moment, which is where the soul resides. It’s not like you have to go someplace else to get it. So the challenge here is, Can we live this moment fully? When you ask a group of people to spend five minutes watching their own breaths moving in and out of their bodies, just as an experiment, they discover that their minds are like bubbling vats, and it’s not so easy to stay on the breath. The mind has a life of its own. It carries you away. Over a lifetime, you may wind up in the situation where you are never actually where you find yourself. You’re always someplace else, lost, in your head, and therefore in a kind of dysfunctional or nonoptimal state. Why dysfunctional? Because the only time you ever have in which to learn anything or see anything or feel anything, or express any feeling or emotion, or respond to an event, or grow, or heal, is this moment, because this is the only moment any of us ever gets. You’re only here now; you’re only alive in this moment. The past is gone, and I don’t know what’s coming in the future. It’s obvious that if I want my life to be whole, to resonate with feeling and integrity and value and health, there’s only one way I can influence the future: by owning the present.
Jon Kabat Zinn
The sitting practice of meditation is a powerful means to get to know yourself, to introduce yourself to yourself. Meditation is a discipline, a technique to transcend technique. You sit down on a cushion or a chair and simply experience yourself: your body, your breath, and your thoughts. You just be there, very simply. There are several aspects to meditation that are part of establishing friendship with yourself. One is mindfulness. Mindfulness is keeping track, or keeping a pulse, of being there, in a nonjudgmental way. There is no good or bad. Everything is allowed to be. Among other things, mindfulness is a stabilizing or pacifying influence. The panic of everyday life and every expectation laid on life can subside. This is a huge relief. It is called the discovery of peace.
Carolyn Rose Gimian, What’s Good About Being You
Mindfulbalance 