La joie réside au plus intime de l’âme; on peut aussi bien la posséder dans une obscure prison que dans un palais.
(Joy dwells in the deepest part of the soul; one can have it in an obscure prison just as much as in a palace)
St Therese of Lisieux
photo of the former prison in Annecy by Emmanuel Boutet
It is easy enough to see that all through our lives we are faced with the task of reconciling opposites
which, in logical thought, cannot be reconciled
E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
photo: pjposullivan
In my experience, cultivating … patience and persistence is essential for developing a sustainable meditation practice and for making change in your life. Furthermore, the two go hand-in-hand.
Patience is the ability to abide with things the way they are. It allows you to tolerate failure, disappointment, defeat, unpleasantness, and confusion without giving up — both on the meditation cushion and in life. Persistence is the capacity of energetic resolve—the determination to hold steady to your intentions. Persistence brings into play the essential energy for directing your attention to what needs to be done right now. Deliberately placing attention on patience gives you the energy to cultivate patience; steady attention on being persistent will yield the energy to nurture new habits of mind.
Phillip Mofitt, The Dance of Patience and Persistence
For there is a boundary to looking.
And the world that is looked at so deeply
wants to flourish in love.
Work for the eye is done, now
go and do heart-work
on all the images imprisoned within you.
Rilke
photo llias81
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. That’s enough.
When you see you can do that, you continue, and you give two little joys, and you remove two little sufferings, then three, and then four. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now.
Sister Chân Không
photo shaun mitchem
We must cultivate the ability to hold tension in life-giving ways. Our lives are filled with contradictions — from the gap between our aspirations and our behavior to observations and insights we cannot abide because they run counter to our convictions. If we fail to hold them creatively, these contradictions will shut us down and take us out of the action. But when we allow their tensions to expand our hearts, they can open us to new understandings of ourselves and our world, enhancing our lives and allowing us to enhance the lives of others. We are imperfect and broken beings who inhabit an imperfect and broken world. The genius of the human heart lies in its capacity to use these tensions to generate insight, energy, and new life.
Parker Plamer, Healing the Heart of Democracy
photo gocheganas
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