Ordinariness is a simple presence in this moment that allows the mystery of life to show itself. When Thoreau warns us to “beware of any activity that requires the purchase of new clothes” he reminds us that simplicity is the way we open to everyday wonder.

Ordinariness is interested in what is here and now….the ordinary mystery of breathing or of walking, the mystery of trees on our streets or of loving someone near to us. It is not based on attaining mystical states or extraordinary powers. It does  not seek to become something special, but is emptying, listening.

Jack Kornfield, Bringing home the Dharma