How can we ever lose interest in life?
Spring has come again
And cherry trees bloom in the mountains.
Ryokan, 1758 – 1831, Zen monk, hermit and poet
Lift your eyes
Month: March 2023
Sunday Quote: listen
I tried to discover, in the sounds of forests and waves, words that others could not hear, and I opened up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.
[Je tâchais de découvrir, dans les bruits des forêts et des flots, des mots que les autres hommes n’entendaient point, et j’ouvrais l’oreille pour écouter la révélation de leur harmonie.]
Flaubert, November
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Intimacy with disappearance
The only choice we have, as we mature, is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous, and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearances to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully,
or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.
David Whyte, “Vulnerability” in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
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A change of mind
If you really want to escape the things that bother you,
what you’re needing is not to be in a different place
but to be a different person.
Seneca
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A pure, flowing river
The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that their minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned.
No matter what kind of material is thrown into it, it will not burn.
Many experiences – good, bad, and indifferent – are thrown into the flowing river of our lives, but we are not burned, owing to the power of the love in our hearts.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
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Keep going
We have just passed the Spring Solstice. In Ireland this has meant more grey skies and rain than we saw in most of the Winter. Sometimes change happens out of sight and we have to keep going on trust
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun
Jack Gilbert, 1925 – 2012, American poet
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