Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence,
and I learn, whatever state I may be in,
therein to be content
Helen Keller.
photo berit
Month: January 2015
Standing here
One of our human absurdities is the fact that we’re constantly thinking about either the future or the past. Those who are young think of the future because they’ve got more of it. Those who are older think more about the past because, for them, there is more of it. But in order to experience life, we have to live each moment. Life has not been happening in the past. That’s memory. Life is not going to happen in the future. That’s planning. The only time we can live is now, this moment, and as absurd as it may seem, we’ve got to learn that. As human beings with life spans of sixty, seventy, or eighty years, we have to learn to actually experience living in the present. When we have learned that, we will have eliminated a great many of our problems.
Ayya Khema, Being Nobody, Going Nowhere
photo ali
Sunday Quote: Where we place the mind
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
photo D Sharon Pruitt
The way things are
Blessed are the man and the woman
who have grown beyond their greed
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.
Psalm 1,
Translated and adapted by Stephen Mitchell, A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew.
photo gordon hatton
Cyclical
In moments of darkness and pain
remember all is cyclical.
Sit quietly behind your wooden door
Spring will come again
Loy Ching-Yuen (1873 – 1960) Chinese Taoist tai chi master.
Blown by the wind
A big storm with gale force winds hit Ireland overnight, causing high waves and uprooting trees, disrupting schedules and causing difficulties for normal activities. Although unusual, such an event is a useful metaphor for how our minds are at times, as we are subject to moods or get caught up in – and blown along by – the swirling events of a day. Life can create a succession of different storms, events and emotions that can unseat or destabilize us. What we are trying to do in meditation is to sit and tame this mind, cultivating a still center which does not get hooked by the winds of mood and of events:
The stillpoint, the centeredness – that’s awareness. When I cannot notice it and go out into the turning world, I become a person and get caught in my habits, my loves and hates, my likes and dislikes. But if I am centered at this point, it’s like the island you cannot go beyond, or the stillpoint of the turning world, the eye of the storm. And then the world revolves around it. The mood you are in is not the stillness. The mood comes and goes. It changes, revolves; it’s happy, sad, elated, depressed, inspired, bored, loving, hateful, and on and on like this….It’s so easy to say “I’m in a bad mood” or “I’m in a good mood” Our langauge is like that, so we become the mood – “I feel happy today, everything’s fine” or “Today is one of my bad days”. That’s why I encourage this investigation of thought, so that you are not creating yourself, endlessly reinforcing the sense of self through your proliferating thoughts.
Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence
photo mcmimages1965
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