Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action,
even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door.
Such pauses take a brief moment,
yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you.
David Stiendl Rast
Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.
Henri Nouwen
We will not perish for want of information,
but only for want of appreciation
The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding
that life without wonder in not worth living.
Abraham Heschel, God in search of Man
The storm which arrived in Ireland and England yesterday and overnight helps us to be more aware of the world of nature and its power. However, it is always there, even in its smallest, quietest elements:
Reading the world
As if it were a book
Written before words —
That sparrow perched
On the withered stalk
In the garden — isn’t
The bird itself
A song to the beloved
Even before it sings?
Gregory Orr, American Poet, 1947 –
photo Linda Tenner
This is what we notice when we simply sit quietly with ourselves for even a few moments: we experience the accumulated momentum of mental noise, booming and buzzing. We notice how strongly we are trained to want something different from what is happening. We notice that our minds are very well-trained in dissatisfaction and distraction. Almost always our focus is on something else — not this. We seek another moment of greater happiness — not this moment. Contentment seems always elsewhere — never here.
Gaylon Ferguson, Natural Wakefulness
To apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
In Ireland, and the rest of Europe, the clocks went back last night (whatever that means) and we have an extra hour today. It happens next week in the US. Arbitrary distinctions, but they prompt us to be more aware of time. Two minutes before midnight 2012 is not much different from two minutes after midnight 2013 and yet we assign huge meaning to certain transitions. To help us deal wisely with the passing of time we concern ourselves with the present moment, in whatever form it takes. We loosen the meanings we assign to it, which often distract us from being fully engaged. We practice sticking close to how things actually are, rather than how they “should” be:
Sometimes we divide our time into categories: you have time for work, time for exercise, time for eating, time for your partner, time for the children and finally, you hope, time for yourself. But the ….attitude [behind mindfulness] is that all time is for yourself: whatever you’re doing, however trivial, is equally important to everything else. No time is wasted. We should give total respect and attitude to whatever we are doing.
Larry Rosenberg, Living in the Light of Death.
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