Capacity for delight

Whether success or failure: the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality.

The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

May Sarton

Sunday Quote: Stories

The mind starts to become quiet when it really sees how untrue its narrative is.

Adyashanti

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A state of grace

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness.

This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.

Eckhart Tolle

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Be patient

Patience means allowing things to unfold at their own speed
rather than jumping in with your habitual response to either pain or pleasure.
The real happiness that underlies both gloriousness and wretchedness often gets short-circuited by our jumping too fast into the same habitual pattern.

Patience is not …learned when everything is harmonious and going
well. When everything is smooth sailing, who needs patience? … There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. Patience implies
willingness to be alive rather than trying to seek harmony.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Commentary on the Lojong Slogan, “Whichever of the Two Occurs, Be Patient”

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Slow harvest

Nothing great is created suddenly,

anymore than a bunch of grapes or a fig.

If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time.

Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen

Epicetus

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Pay attention

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

Mary Oliver, The Summer Day [extract]