Mindfulness also means to remember… what? Mindfulness pulls us back to a greater living reality, reminding us that life is more than our own repetitive thoughts or fears or desires. Rooted in the present tense world of the body rather than the thoughts, the strangely named mindfulness (bodyfulness? Lifefulness?) delivers us from the hellish centrifugal force of our own egos.
Tracy Cochran, The Open Door
photo justin 1569
There’s a story that Ed Brown, the Zen chef , tells about his early days with his teacher, Suzuki Roshi. Ed was the head cook at Tassajara Zen Mountain Centre in California in the 1960s and was well known for his volatile temper. Once, in a fury, he went to his teacher and complained about the state of the kitchen: people didn’t clean up properly; people talked too much; people were distracted and unmindful. It was chaos on a daily basis. Suzuki Roshi’s reply was simple: “Ed, if you want a calm kitchen, calm your mind”
Found in Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, with thanks to Bianca for the loan of the book
photo jeppestown
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished;
but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher, 1689 – 1755
photo michael johnston
Often we find it easier to think our way around things
rather than to feel our way through them
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
photo rudi winter
I’ve spent many years learning
how to fix life, only to discover
at the end of the day
that life is not broken
There is a hidden seed of greater wholeness
in everyone and everything.
We serve life best
when we water it
and befriend it.
When we listen before we act.
In befriending life,
we do not make things happen
according to our own design.
We uncover something that is already happening
in us and around us and
create conditions that enable it.
Everything is moving toward its place of wholeness
always struggling against the odds.
Everything has a deep dream of itself and its fulfillment.
Rachel Naomi Remen, Everything has a Deep Dream
(redone as a poem by Meg Wheatley).
photo Ude
It is hard to feel afraid without thinking something is going wrong. We readily react by judging ourselves and others, in an attempt to escape the pain of fear. It doesn’t work – neither does running off into the wilds. Even sacred places are deemed to fail us if we are motivated by a wish to escape. Can we experience the fear sensation without ‘becoming’ afraid? Fear is still fear but it is perceived from an expanded, less cramped and less threatened awareness. We can even begin to see that fear too is ‘just so’. A non-judgemental, whole body-mind acknowledgement of the condition of fear, here and now, can transform our pain into freedom. Willingness to meet ourselves where we find ourselves is the way.
Ajahn Munindo, Dhammapada Reflections
photo russavia
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