We imagined [the divine] as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers . . . This palpable world, which we are used to treating with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association, is a holy place.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
If you listen to the traffic with a clear mind,
without any concepts,
it is not noisy,
it is only what it is.
Stephen Mitchell, Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn
When you get up in the morning, let the world wait.
Defy it a little.
First learn something to inspire you. Take a few moments to meditate upon it.
And then you may plunge ahead into the darkness, full of light with which to illuminate it.
Tzvi Freeman, Canadian rabbi and author
The wise person uses the mind like a mirror.
It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing.
It receives but does not keep.
Zhuangzi, Chinese Philosopher, 4th Century BC
The washing never gets done.
The furnace never gets heated.
Books never get read.
Life is never completed.
Life is like a ball which one must continually
catch and hit so that it won’t fall.
When the fence is repaired at one end,
it collapses at the other. The roof leaks,
the kitchen door won’t close,
there are cracks in the foundation,
the torn knees of children’s pants . . .
One can’t keep everything in mind.
The wonder is
that beside all this one can notice
the spring which is so full of everything
continuing in all directions – into evening clouds,
into the redwing’s song and into every
drop of dew on every blade of grass in the meadow,
as far as the eye can see, into the dusk.
Jaan Kaplinski, 1940 – 2021, Estonian poet, philosopher and cultural critic, The wonder is
I do not live happily or comfortably
with the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
the news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
having felt something more wonderful
Than all the electricity of New York City.
Mary Oliver, With Thanks to the Field Sparrow Whose Voice is So Delicate and Humble
Mindfulbalance 