The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that Love is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, Love is under the porch as well as on the top of the mountain, and joy is both in the front row and in the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
When I am silent,
I fall into that place where everything is music.
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy—because we will always want to have something else or something more.
Take the breath of the new dawn,
make it a part of you,
it will give you strength.
Narrative loops […} play over and over in our mind, the trains of thought pulling out of the station one after another and taking us for a long ride down the track even before we know we’re aboard. Meditation has to do with looking deeply into the mind and body to discern the various processes unfolding each moment that fabricate the virtual world of our existence. For most of us the monkey mind chatters incessantly as it swings from one branch to another, seizing first this thought, then that idea, then a host of miscellaneous associations, memories and fantasies. We could watch this show all day and learn very little. As the mind gradually settles, however, upon the breath or some other primary object of attention, it gains some strength and becomes more calm. Then it is better able to see the stream of consciousness for what it is: a sequence of mind states unfolding one after another in rapid succession. As the foundations upon which mindfulness are established become more stable, one can look upon the flow of experience rushing by instead of being swept away by it.
Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind
Most of our dissatisfaction in life comes from a mind that acts in one of two ways. Either it pulls – wants some things that are going on in our lives (or in others’ lives) or it pushes away – it does not want elements of what is happening to us at the moment. This pushing or pulling – which is frequently linked to us comparing ourselves with real or imagined others – makes it very difficult for us to enjoy the present moment. As I once heard meditation teacher Larry Rosenberg say, we live in “what actually is” but we insist on thinking ourselves into “what is not”:
You [have] a hidden demand that life be other than it is, and then you suffer and cause others to suffer. The present moment isn’t acceptable because you aren’t getting what you want, or you are not who you want to be, or there is something you want to get rid of. Even if it is a pleasant moment, you worry about the future and wanting to have still more pleasant moments, so you are still being defined by attachment. You are not willing to accept what the future may be, so you suffer in this moment over what is really only a concept. But the future is not here now. It may turn out the way you want it to, or you may change your mind about what you want. What you believe may be awful if it happens may turn out to not be so bad or to lead to some unanticipated good alternative.
Phillip Moffitt, Dancing with Life
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