Month: November 2019

Getting out of the way

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Bernie Glassman, a Zen teacher, has a practice called ‘Bearing Witness.’ You go into a hard, complex situation with the mind of not knowing, of having no idea or opinion, and instead, feel, listen, and be in the actual situation, becoming one with it. This nonjudgmental state of mind can position you so that you might be able to find a way to help, not out of your own need to make something better so that you feel better or in order to alleviate your own fear, but so that you act when empty of yourself. You get yourself out of the way.

Natalie Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language

Not as solid as we are making it out to be

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Emptiness refers to the fact that things are not as solid and real as they seem. something that we hold in our hands might appear completely solid and unchanging, but that’s an illusion. Whatever it may be, it is changing all the time, and when we investigate, we find change and fluidity where before we assumed permanence and solidity. This does not make the phenomenal world nothing; at the same time, its essential nature is not what we usually think it is.

Yongey Mingpur Rinoche, In Love with the World

Sunday quote: Letting life flow

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Let life live you for a while

instead of trying to make yourself live life

Alan Watts

Light and dark

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As one matures,
a greater tolerance of ambiguity
is essential both for growth 
and as a measure of respect for the autonomy of the mystery.
James Hollis, Tracking the Gods

Enough

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Our whole spiritual transformation

brings us to the point where we realize

that in our own being,

we are enough.

Ram Dass