As a friend

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Here is a practice I have been working with for more than a decade. I recite, usually silently, these two sentences:

May I meet this moment fully.
May I meet it as a friend.

These blessing phrases cultivate and sustain a mind of peace and goodwill. For me, they represent the promise of practice. “May I meet this moment fully” expresses my faith that an alert and balanced mind is a possibility for human beings. “May I meet it as a friend” reminds me that my mind’s natural benevolence is my best refuge. Although most of my daily practice has always been the simple practice of alert attention to changing experience, I often begin periods of simple sitting with some repetitions of this two-phrase mantra as a kind of mood-setter, an incliner of my mind toward relaxing.

Sylvia Boorstein, A Bad Day at the Airport

Gifts, every morning

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One is never lacking in opportunities each day to be happy,

as the wonderful G.K. Chesterton reminded us in 1908:

The test of all happiness is gratitude.

Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets.

Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he puts in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs?

photo nevit dilmen

A psalm on acceptance

tree at nightEven in the midst of great pain, Lord,
     I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
     or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
     “Comfort us; shield us from sorrow.”
I pray for whatever you send me,
     and I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
     greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
     for I know that even now you are here.

Psalm 4, from Stephen Mitchell, A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew.

Still point

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Stay at the center of the circle

and let all things take their course

Tao Te Ching, 19

Let go

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Every morning
I surrender to being here
I let go into gravity

It takes practice
To give up habitual holding on, holding in, holding back
Every morning I open myself
And invite grace to have its way with me

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

photo joolz

Sunday Quote: Trust

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Sometimes things happen that we do not understand and we wish were otherwise.  Rumi offers some solace: 

Give up to grace.

The ocean takes care of each wave until it gets to the shore

Rumi

photo CC-BY