We complain a lot about the ever-changing weather in Ireland; this week alone storms and snow, cold and fog…
Every day, priests minutely examine the Teachings
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by
The wind and rain, the snow and moon.
Ikkyu, 1394–1481
When we don’t have sufficient information about what is happening around us, we create meaning. The problem is…this meaning is largely negative. We personalize events and other peoples reactions, interpreting them as responding to us when they aren’t. For example, we decide a person is judgmental because they are frowning while we talk, when we are actually missing the fact that this person always frowns when they are listening carefully. We make us a story that they dislike us, which makes us afraid of them. Why? Because negative facts make a stronger impression on us than positive or neutral ones.
From a nice little book – Leah Weiss, The Little Book of Bhavana
Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river.
The river is flowing.
We are in it.
Richard Rohr
Each passing year, we are asked to return to the ground of our spirit in order to go on. Each passing year, we are asked to listen like the seed for our crack of light in spring, to listen like the brook for our soft gurgle in summer, to listen like the leaf for our orange face in fall, to listen like the snow for a quiet place where we can powder down and rest
Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred
If your mind isn’t clouded
by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
Wumen Huikai, 1183 -1260
After a weekend of alerts about storms and viruses, living with uncertainty is a skill we all need to cultivate:
My teacher Ajahn Chah would often respond to people’s questions, plans, and ideas with a smile and say, ‘Mai neh.’ The phrase means, ‘It is uncertain, isn’t it?’ He understood the wisdom of uncertainty, the truth of change, and was comfortable in their midst. As with the Cloud of Unknowing or the ‘unlearning’ of the Tao, wisdom grows by opening to the truth of not knowing. The Third Zen Patriarch puts it this way, ‘If you wish to know the truth, only cease to cherish opinions.’ … At the root of suffering is a small heart, frightened to be here, afraid to trust the river of change, to let go in this changing world. With wisdom we allow this not knowing to become a form of trust. St. John of the Cross described it this way, ‘If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.’
Jack Kornfield
Mindfulbalance 