Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior
that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
Abba Poemen (c. 340–450) was an Egyptian monk and one of the early Desert Fathers
In fully allowing conditions to be what they are, we stabilize our hearts and find peace. It’s like putting a boat into water. We make an ark of truth: ‘the conditions are like this,’ and in that truth, we don’t adopt the conditions as our own. This is important: you can’t drain the sea, but you don’t have to drown.
Ajahn Sucitto, Parami
photo pmalkowski
…
When I was about six years old I received an essential …. teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved, and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, “Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.” Right there, I received this pith instruction: We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have the choice.
Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare you
photo vivian eng
The understanding of welcome, outlined in this post, applies not just to other people but also to the emotions and thoughts provoked by everything that happens today:
This is most people’s reality: As soon as something is perceived,
it is named, interpreted, compared with something else,
liked, disliked, or called good or bad by ….the ego.
Eckhart Tolle
photo eviatar bach