Month: September 2023

of ordinary things

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It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Pat Schneider, 1934 – 2020, American writer, poet, writing teacher and editor

Just enjoy

Karl Duffy5 Comments

When a ray of sunshine comes, open out, absorb it to the depths of your being. Never think that an hour earlier you were cold and that an hour later you will be cold again. Just enjoy. Latch on to the passing minute. Shut off the workings of memory and hope… Take away from suffering its double drumbeat of resonance, memory and fear. Suffering may persist, but already it is relieved by half. Throw yourself into each moment as if it were the only one that really existed.

Jacques Lusseyran, 1924–1971, And there was Light.

Lusseyran became blind after a childhood accident, worked with the Resistance in World War Two and survived the Concentration Camp at Buchenwald.

Thanks to Maura Parolini for the quote suggestion. It is taken from the beautiful site The Marginalian

You might actually be quite free

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Buddha nature refers to our deeper inner wholeness

Your buddha nature is always with you. It’s just that you haven’t noticed yet….

Thinking it’s not here is one of the things that keeps you from noticing it.

You might not be deluded in this moment at all. You might be quite free. You might feel the joy that’s the natural joy of being human.

John Tarrant

Sunday Quote: Flow

Karl Duffy7 Comments

A very Taoist viewpoint, seeing that whatever is arising in our lives is already arising, and some element of wisdom comes from accepting that

Let go of all your assumptions

And the world will make perfect sense.

Chuang-Tzu, Second Book of the Tao

Perfection

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We aren’t practicing to make things perfect or to do things perfectly. Rather, we practice to grasp and realize (make real for ourselves) the fact that things already are perfect, perfectly what they are. This has everything to do with holding the present moment in its fullness without imposing anything extra on it, perceiving its purity and the freshness of its potential to give rise to the next moment

Jon Kabat Zinn, Wherever you go, There you are

Things stick

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“The Great way is not difficult. It just avoids picking and choosing.” There is a Taoist flavor to this saying. The sense of following the water path through life. The water if it runs into a stone, it just makes its way around. The water is clear and has no attachments which is why we have a little bowl of water on the altar.…. If we are clear, we hang onto the clarity. This old student doesn’t even hang onto that. Do you still hang onto anything, or not? So we could say that the greatest method of meditation is that whatever comes up, just don’t cling to it. Whatever comes up, let it go. If you can do this, you’ll find the way home very quickly. But it’s hard. Things stick to you.


John Tarrant