Allow life to unfold without trying to force it into the shape imagined by the mind.
Work at allowing more things to unfold in your life
without forcing them to happen
and without rejecting the ones that don’t fit your idea of
what “should” be happening.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Wherever you go, There you Are
I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Wendell Berry I Go Among Trees and Sit Still
Always remember this one great secret of spiritual practice: we don’t have to feel any particular way. We don’t have to have special experiences, nor do we have to be any particular way.
With whatever arises, whether it’s pleasing or not, try to remember that all we can do is experience and work with whatever our life is right now. No matter what life is and no matter how we feel about it, all that matters in practice is whether we can honestly acknowledge what is going on, and then stay present with the physical experience of that moment.
Ezra Bayda, Zen Heart: Simple Advice for Living with Mindfulness and Compassion
If you feel that your dreams aren’t coming true, you might think that you need to do more, or to think and strategize more.
In fact, what you might need is less – less noise coming to you from both inside and outside -so that you have the space for your heart’s truest intention to germinate and flourish
Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence
Enlightenment is not something you achieve.
It is the absence of something.
All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal.
Enlightenment is dropping all that.
Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, 1885–1973, Zen master in the Sōtō tradition,
If you are distressed by anything external,
the pain is not due to the thing itself,
but to your estimate of it;
and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8, §47, i
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