Month: April 2014

We never fully arrive

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Three quotes on not knowing....

Jizo asked Hogen, “Where are you going?”

“I just wander aimlessly” replied Hogen.

“What is the nature of your wandering,” asked Jizo.

“I don’t know,” replied Hogen.

“Not knowing is the most intimate,” replied Jizo.

And at this Hogen experienced great enlightenment.

Zen Story

One Zen story states, “Not knowing is most intimate.” I understand this to mean that what is most essential is not understood through the filter of our judgments, past knowledge, or memories. When not-knowing helps these to drop away, the result can be a greater immediacy – what some might call being intimate. This practice of beginner’s mind is to cultivate an ability to meet life without preconceived ideas, interpretations, or judgments.

Gil Fronsdal

Not knowing but loving

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tulip-queen-of-the_1636414a

The lesson of spiritual life is not about gaining knowledge,

but about how we love.

Are we able to love what is given to us,

love in the midst of all things,

love ourselves and others?

Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

A real miracle

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File:Path , Muirsheil Country Park - geograph.org.uk - 30201.jpg
I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child  – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

photo richard webb

Sunday Quote : When we stay quiet

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File:Crystal Lake Thanksgiving (2987367939).jpg

Silence is the closest thing to God we know.

Meister Eckhart

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The value of waiting

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Dog waiting for his owners to come.jpg

Waiting is not a very popular attitude. Waiting is not something that people think about with great sympathy. In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, “Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don’t just sit there and wait!” For many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go. And people do not like such a place. They want to get out of it by doing something…

Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands…But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing…Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it… Waiting is essential to the spiritual life.

Henri Nouwen, Waiting for God

photo nir b

A day to be still

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File:Falls Inside the Mountain.jpg

Let the mind rest at peace.

The Ten Thousand Things rise and fall,  while the self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

photo eric hill