A lovely image of the solid ground we strive for:
By effort and conscious awareness [Apramāda],
discipline and self-mastery,
a wise person makes for themselves
an island which no flood can overwhelm.
The Dhammapada, 2.25
Grounded
Month: May 2024
All will be well
One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite teachers: “Most things do not matter very much. The rest do not matter at all!” (Stylianos Ateshlis, aka Daskolos). I read it not cynically, but in the form of a statement not to worry so much over this and that. There is a bigger picture, and, I imagine it to be one in which all is well, and all will be well.
Right within each and every one of us the whole creation is thrumming freshly formed and alive. Enjoy that!
Gil Hedley, founder of the Somanautics Workshop approach to the body. [from the Alive on All Channels blog]
The only ground
You are so knitted into a day. You are within it; the day is as close as your skin. It is around your eyes; it is inside your mind. The day moves you, often it can weigh you down; or again it can raise you up. Yet the amazing fact is: this day vanishes. When you look behind you, you do not see your past standing there in a series of day shapes. You cannot wander back through the gallery of your past. Your days have disappeared silently and for ever. Your future time has not arrived yet. The only ground of time is the present moment.
John O’Donohue, Anam Cara
How naïve.
A wooden spoon for stirring jam,
Dripping sweet tar, while in the pan
Plum magma’s bubbles blather.
For someone who can’t grasp the whole
There’s salvation in the remembered detail.
What, back then, did I know about that?
The real, hard as a diamond,
Was to happen in the indefinable
Future, and everything seemed
Only a sign of what was to come. How naïve.
Now I know inattention is an unforgivable sin
And each particle of time has an ultimate dimension.
Janisz Szuber, 1947 – 2020, Polish Poet, About a Boy Stirring Jam
When your mind is raging
Enemies tried to kill the Buddha by releasing an intoxicated bull elephant named Nalagiri into the narrow street where the Buddha was walking. Those who saw the mad elephant charging shouted warnings to the Buddha and his monks to get out of the way. All the monks fled except for the Buddha and his faithful attendant Ananda [who] bravely moved in front of his master. Gently, the Buddha pushed Ananda to one side and faced the immensely powerful charging elephant alone.
Perhaps the Buddha thought something like this “Dear Nalagiri, the door of my heart is open to you, no matter what you ever do to me. You may swat me with your trunk or crush me under your feet, But I will give you no ill will”
The Buddha gently placed peace in the space between him and the dangerous elephant.…in a few seconds the elephant’s rage had subsided, and he was meekly bowing before the Compassionate One…
When your mind is raging, use kindfulness and letting go. Make peace with your crazy mind instead of fighting it. Don’t use force to subdue your raging bull elephant of a mind.
Ajahn Brahm, Kindfulness
Sunday Quote: Not seeing clearly
In its deepest sense, suffering is intimately linked to a misapprehension of the nature of reality.
Matthieu Ricard, Happiness
Mindfulbalance 