Month: August 2022

Clean your windows

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When you are upset, your window is blurred. And…you’re going to straighten out all the buildings just because your window is blurred with the rain?

Could we clean our windows first?

We see people not as they are, but as we are. And it’s amazing how in the beginning we saw people as rude; then when we change, we see frightened people. They are so scared that they’re driven to hostility. Then you are understanding, you are compassionate, whereas before you’d react with anger, with hate.

Anthony De Mello, sj.

Moment by moment

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Tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it;

…..each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.
 

Andre Gide

How do you know?

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Try not to resist the changes that come your way.
Instead, let life live through you.

And do not worry that your life is turning upside down.
How do you know that the side you are used to
is better than the one to come?

Rumi

Not looking from outside

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9th century Zen master, Tozan Ryokai, attained enlightenment many times. Once when he was crossing a river he saw himself reflected in the water and composed a verse, “Don’t try to figure out who you are. If you figure out who you are, what you understand will be far away from you. You will have just an image of yourself.”

Actually, you are in the river. You may say that is just a shadow or a reflection of yourself, but if you look carefully with warm-hearted feeling, that is you. You may think you are very warm-hearted, but when you try to understand how warm, you cannot actually measure. Yet when you see yourself with a warm feeling in the mirror or the water, that is actually you.

And whatever you do, you are there.

from the great Suzuki Roshi, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen

A mind at rest

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Without a story, the fragments won’t settle.

Lia Purpura, 1964 – , American poet

Sunday Quote: Joy

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what you really want is
love’s confusing joy.
 

Rumi