The art of living is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other,
It consists in being sensitive to each moment in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive
Alan Watts
I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully,
because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree.
It was so happy. I bowed my head,
and I knew that we have a lot to learn from the leaf
because it was not afraid;
it knew that nothing can be born and nothing can die.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Sometimes we try too hard, and then life has a way of revealing what we need
The early sun dissolves the mist
that has covered the mountain.
All night I have listened to the wise,
yet failed to learn.
Dimly, darkly, the eternal pines
rise without effort from the vanishing fog.
Xue Tao, c770–832, Chinese poet
We must shape life so
that at some future hour,
facts and dreams meet.
Victor Hugo
Sun-faced Buddha and Moon-faced Buddha are metaphors used in Buddhism. The Sun-faced Buddha lives in the world for a long period – 1800 years or for eternity, the Moon- faced just for one day.
When we think about our human lives:
There are, as you know, people who live long, like those Sun-faced Buddhas, and there are people whose lives are short, like those Moon-faced Buddhas.
It’s useless to worry.
Baso Dōitsu 709 – 788 recorded in The Blue Cliff Record, a collection of Chan Buddhist koans compiled in 1125
When we dare to be still and let the feelings come, even if we fear they will pounce on us like panthers, we find something surprising. Karma means movement, and sometimes it’s easy to see that we are almost always in movement – almost always moving away from what is, always planning, improving, even trying to make what is stay. When we dare to be still, we stop our karma. What does this mean? It means we aren’t sentenced to live out the same old thoughts and fears. We discover that there is a force of love and compassion comes with feeling the pain we fear in the same way a hand flies up to cradle a bumped head. And we discover that things are not as we fear, that we are not alone, that awareness and stillness and compassion are not just a words but forces, that we are held.
Tracy Cochran, What Can Happen When We’re Still
Mindfulbalance 