Life has its own rhythm. Our task is not to control it, but to engage fully with what is present.
When effort is needed, effort will appear.
When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself.
You need not push life about.
Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment,
which is the dying now to the now. For living is dying.
Without death life cannot be.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, 20th‑century Indian teacher of nondualism
Windows teach us to be transparent, to allow the flow of light both in and out. How very challenging it is to be like a clear window, especially in difficult situations. We are asked not to force or to add anything extra to the events, to allow light to emerge, and to trust that it will. That kind of transparency requires letting go of our agenda. It requires a willingness, an unguarded presence. To be transparent as a window is to welcome the unknown, to allow the unexpected, and to find light in all that is familiar.
Gunilla Norris, Becoming Bread: Meditations on Loving and Transformation
There is a Tibetan saying: ‘When things are difficult, then let yourself be happy.’
Otherwise, if happiness is relying on others or the environment or your surroundings, it’s not possible.
Like an ocean, the waves always move but underneath, it always remains calm. We have that ability as well.
On an intellectual level, we may see things as desperate, difficult. But underneath, at the emotional level, you can keep calm.
The Dalai Lama
Today is Gaudete Sunday
Joy is not to be found in things;
we find it inside ourselves
When we are free of all created things,
we find the uncreated joy of God.
Meister Eckhart, Sermon 12, “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”
The symbol of the heart has often been used to express love…… Some have questioned whether this symbol is still meaningful today. Yet living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart
Instead of running after superficial satisfactions and playing a role for the benefit of others, we would do better to think about the really important questions in life. Who am I, really? What am I looking for? What direction do I want to give to my life, my decisions and my actions? Why and for what purpose am I in this world? How do I want to look back on my life once it ends? What meaning do I want to give to all my experiences? …All these questions lead us back to the heart.
Pope Francis, Dilexit Nos
The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves.
By “cessation” we mean the cessation of hell as opposed to just weather – the cessation of this resistance, this resentment, this feeling of being completely trapped and caught, trying to maintain huge ME at any cost.
The teachings about recognizing egolessness sound quite abstract, but the … instruction that we have all received- the golden key – is that part of the meditation technique where you recognize what’s happening with you and you say to yourself, “Thinking.” Then you let go of all the talking and the fabrication and discussion, and you’re left just sitting with the weather – the quality and the energy of the weather itself.
Maybe you still have that quaky feeling or that churning feeling or that exploding feeling or that calm feeling or that dull feeling, as if you’d just been buried in the earth. You’re left with that. That’s the key: come to know that.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness
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