As if we wanted it

Photographer friend of Jack Wintz

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it.

It is all we ever have, so we night as well work with it rather than struggling against it.

We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy

Pema Chodron

photo: St Francis and the Wolf, Monterosso al Mare, Italy

Keep it simple

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Really we operate on a very small basis. We think we are great, broadly significant, and that we cover a whole large area. We see ourselves as having a history and a future, and here we are in our big-deal present. But if we look at ourselves clearly in this very moment, we see we are just grains of sand — just little people concerned only with this little dot which is called newness.

We can only operate on one dot at a time, and mindfulness of mind approaches our experience in that way. We are there, and we approach ourselves on the very simple basis of that. That does not particularly have many dimensions, many perspectives; it is just a simple thing.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

photo robert lawton

Focusing on what matters

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Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
 
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
 
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

from Mary Oliver,  Messenger

Sunday Quote: How to feel full

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Wear gratitude like a cloak

and it will feed every corner of your life.

Rumi

Noticing the process of becoming

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Becoming, which results from clinging, involves the idea of having or being something more satisfying than at present. We want to become a very good meditator, or we want to become spiritual, or more learned. We have all sorts of ideas but are all bound up with wanting to become, because we are not satisfied with what we are. Often we do not even pay attention to what we are now, but just know that something is lacking. Instead of trying to realize what we are and investigating where the difficulty actually lies, we just dream of becoming something else. 

Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies

Our actual life

supermarket_check_outWherever you are

that is the entry point

Kabir