You carry all the ingredients to turn your existence into joy.
Mix them,
Mix them!
Hafiz
Month: June 2017
Sunday Quote: Full of wonder
This is a wonderful day.
I’ve never seen this one before
Maya Angelou
You make the waves
Very stormy weather in Ireland this past week, continuing overnight with heavy rain. The Eastern tradition called the causes of emotional pain ‘worldly winds’: gusts of blame and loss, happiness and unhappiness. They blow through the heart and throw us off balance, making us feel that we never feel good enough where we are or how our life actually is:
Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble.
You yourself make the waves in your mind.
If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm.
This mind is called big mind.
Shunryu Suzuki
Developing a routine of care
We are so attentive to our devices, making sure they are charged. Do we show the same care and concern for our hearts? Do we wait until we are running on fumes? How lovely and wise to make sure that the recharging is not through being a “weekend warrior” or even once-every-few-years vacations (both are lovely), but rather a matter of daily practice. […]
Let us, you and I, friends, find what sustains our soul.
Let us find what nurtures our heart, who nurtures our heart, where our heart is nurtured.
Omid Safi, Tending Our Inner Life to Make the World Whole
Turning up, despite our fears
Even in beautiful places, we all have to be with different kinds of limitations: we look for an ideal life, but even in nature not every fruit is perfect in shape or colour:
I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do
was to show up for my life
and not be ashamed.
Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year
What to do in a storm of emotions
Sometimes unexpected winds blow. It is best to find strength within oneself at moments like this:
You too are a tree. During a storm of emotions, you should not stay at the level of the head or the heart, which are like the top of the tree. You have to leave the heart, the eye of the storm, and come back to the trunk of the tree. Your trunk is one centimeter below your navel. Focus there, paying attention only to the movement of your abdomen, and continue to breathe.
Thích Nhat Hạnh
Mindfulbalance 