Play

Once a day, take a moment to remember your real life’s work and differentiate it from the games you play in order to achieve it.

Then, commit to playing wholeheartedly

I’ve mentioned the idea of using the word play to replace the word work. If you have no way to feel playful doing your work, get different work.

This is not to say that play is easy. Real creativity, which is the essence of play, can feel absolutely grueling. But ultimately there is a sense of joy and meaning in having done it. The essential self doesn’t mind hard work. But it will reject meaningless work.

Martha Beck Blog, I Rest my Pace

Behind the flow

We all have moments of agitation in our thoughts and feelings. We tend to identify with these as us. We are also always grasping after something that we think will finally complete us. The legendary Bodhidharma points here to a fluid way of working with the mind: See it, and the self, as a process, not a solid, unchanging entity.

Huike said to Bodhidharma, “My mind is always restless. Please give it some calm.”

To which Bodhidharma replied, “OK. Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it.

Huike said, “Although I have tried to find it, I cannot hold it fast”

Bodhidharma then said, “See, there, I have just stilled your mind.”

Case 41 in the Gateless Gate, “Pacifying the Mind”. 

Not concerned

Peaceful is the one who is not concerned with having more or less.

Unbound by name and fame

they are free from sorrow from the world

and mostly from themselves

Rumi

Staying rooted

If you let yourself be blown to and fro

you lose touch with your roots.

If you let restlessness move you

you lose touch with who you are

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 25

Sunday Quote: Moment by moment

The first of the leaves are beginning to fall…

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it,

but to enable it.


Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

contentment

Try to live simply.

A simple lifestyle, freely chosen,

is a source of strength

Quaker Faith and Practice: Advices and Queries, 41