Although the reflection in the pond
is often blurry to us:
Grasp the image.
Only in the double world
do voices become
tender and eternal.
Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, I,9
Month: June 2013
Sunday Quote: Wisdom
If the doors of perception were cleansed,
every thing would appear to man as it is,
infinite
William Blake
photo: jalal volker
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Dreams that purify
I have noticed in my life that all men have a liking for some special animal, tree, plant, or spot of earth. If men would pay more attention to these preferences and seek what is best to do, in order to make themselves worthy of that toward which they are so attracted, they might have dreams which would purify their lives.
Brave Buffalo, Teton Sioux, By the Power of their Dreams (late 19th century)
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Days that restore
Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season, the plant begins to die. If dormancy continues to be prevented, the entire species will die. A period of rest – in which nutrition and fertility most reality coalesce – is not simply a human psychological convenience; it is a spiritual and biological necessity.
Wayne Muller, Sabbath
photo werner100359
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Listening with new ears
It seems to me of the utmost importance that we listen in order to learn. Most of us listen with the background of what we know, of what we have experienced. Perhaps you have never noticed the difference between the mind that really learns and the mind that merely accumulates, gathers knowledge. The mind that is accumulating knowledge never learns. It is always translating what it hears in terms of its own experience, in terms of the knowledge which it has gathered; it is caught up in the process of accumulating, of adding to what it already knows, and such a mind is incapable of learning.
J. Krisnamurtu
photo: lazylightening
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Letting go of black and white
When we train in letting go of thinking that anything — including ourselves — is either good or bad, we open our minds to practice with forgiveness and humor. And we practice opening to a compassionate space in which good/bad judgments can dissolve. We practice letting go of our idea of a “goal” and letting go of our concept of “progress,” because right there, in that process of letting go, is where our hearts open and soften — over and over again.
Pema Chodron
photo: pete
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