Happiness is
in the quiet, ordinary things.
A table,
a chair,
a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages.
And the petal falling from the rose,
and the light flickering
as we sit silent.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Happiness is
in the quiet, ordinary things.
A table,
a chair,
a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages.
And the petal falling from the rose,
and the light flickering
as we sit silent.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
A similar thought to others this week. We are always gently working on the heart’s capacity to accept life as it actually is
When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept
and he said if he were God
he would have made the world just so and no different.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward.
They think they live by what they want.
But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of.
What they don’t want.
Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
Necessary advice for life in Ireland, but in a more general sense it is a way of working with the mind. Once we fix on one desired result, inevitably the alternative seems a disappointment. Appreciation is a peaceful state of mind.
For after all, the best thing one can do
when it is raining
is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 – 1882, American Poet
Do non-doing;
Strive for the effortless.
Find flavor in that which has no flavor.
Deal with the small as if it were the great, deal with the few as if it were the many,
Respond to resentment with virtue.
Plan for the difficult while it is still easy;
work on the great while it is still small.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 63
Watch the thought and its ways with care
And let it spring out of love
Born out of concern for all beings.
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.
The Dhammapada