[Pausing] creates an open doorway to the sacredness of the place in which you find yourself. The vastness, stillness, and magic of the place will dawn upon you, if you let your mind relax and drop for just a few breaths the storyline you are working so hard to maintain. If you pause just long enough, you can reconnect with exactly where you are, with the immediacy of your experience.
Pema Chodron, Waking up to your World
photo kenny louie
The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away
and the weather is clear again.
If your heart is clear, then all things in your world are clear
Ryokan, Zen poet, 1758 – 1831
Photo nevit dilmen
To acknowledge that suffering has an origin is already an abandonment of sorts. It means rather than thiniking, “I am a victim of a frustrating world that refuses to conform to my wishes”, we acknowledge that suffering is an inevitable part of life and it is something we take into ourselves by the way we react to circumstances.
Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth
If the intention is to bring awareness to the direct experience of the present moment, with fresh eyes, then life itself becomes the practice. What’s so powerful about understanding that wherever you are that is the entry point is that it frees us of this false belief that we need to be in a certain head space to train our minds toward mindfulness. In the moments you are doubting, agitated, restless or bored, these are the entry points to the present moment…no matter what is happening in your life at any given moment, that is what you can practice being mindful with.
Elisha Goldstein, A Key Mindful Lesson for us all
Wherever you are,
that is the entry point
Kabir
Standing in a doorway you are forced into the imagination, wondering what you will find on the other side. It is a place full of expectant fantasy. This is the key point about thresholds. . . In their narrow confines you may find fantasy, memory, dream, anxiety, miracle, intuition, and magic. These are the means by which the deep soul prospers – neither in life nor entirely out of life. This is a good place from which to make a decision and get a hunch. It is the true home of creativity. It is also the claustrophobic place of greatest fear. Anything of moment takes place in these interstices – in the tunnels and passages and waiting periods.
Thomas Moore
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