This dewdrop world –
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet
Kobayashi Issa, 1763 – 1828, Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest, after the death of his daughter
Sunday Quote: Always changing
Year: 2021
Regrets
Most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.
Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
Underneath the worry
In Zen meditation, we learn how to breathe with phrases, inquire of them, take them beyond conventional styles of understanding. We allow thought to arise, but not grasping thought, not being caught up in thought, not driving thought with our fear, desire, our smallness, as we usually do. So that instead of interpreting or explaining the phrases, trying to gain mastery over them, we allow ourselves to feel the phrases deeply, below the level of our conceptual mind.
In one story, Wu is sweeping the ground and Yan says, “Too busy!”
Wu replies, “You should know there’s one who’s not busy.”
This story is telling us that when we think we are busy, that’s just on the surface. The stress we complain about is conceptual and superficial. We can run around and do plenty of things, but when we know who we are and what is actually going on, we don’t need to be stressed out about anything.
Norman Fischer, Phrases and Spaces
What to do now
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far into the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke
How to keep going
When the big things feel out of control,
focus on what you love right under your nose.
The Horse in Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
per Laura V…
Running
In every one of us there’s a tendency to run, There’s a belief that happiness is not possible here and now, so there is a tendency to run into the future in order to look for happiness. That habit energy may have been transmitted to us by our father, our mother, or our ancestors. Running has become a habit. Even in our dreams we continue to run and look for something. The practice of mindfulness helps us to stop running and see that everything we have been looking for is here. Many of us have been running all our lives. One mindful step can help us to stop running. When the mind is focused on breathing and walking, we are unifying body, speech, and mind, and we are already home.
Thich Nhat Hahn, How to Walk
Mindfulbalance 