A reminder: meditation is not an activity. Its not something you do, its not another thing on the list.
Its a stopping of activity, it’s a returning to this home base, to our very own existence, that we totally ignore almost all our lives unless we remember not to.
We shouldn’t really call it meditation, perhaps non-meditation would be better.
It’s a return to what’s already here before we’ve done anything.
Henri Shukman
I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour.
If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness.
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
What is unique about a moment that has the power to bless us and the potential to feed us is not so much in the power of the moment itself, but rather the quality of the presence we bring to that moment.
Our presence can change an ordinary, unnoticed moment into a moment of beauty that can feed the soul.
Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary.
Macrina Wiederkehr, osb, 1939 – 2020
If you’re a stranger to your own wound,
then you’re gonna be tempted to despise the wounded.
Fr Gregory Boyle
It is only because our life is so habitually and so firmly based on a mechanical understanding that we think that our everyday life is repetitious.
But it is not so. No one can repeat the same thing.
Whatever you do, it will be different from what you do in the next moment.
That is why we should not waste our time
Shunryu Suzuki.
It is important to focus on the reality of cycles.
Good follows bad and bad follows good. Life is a series of ups and downs. It is important not to identify with the ups and downs of life; rather we must learn how to step outside ourselves and just notice.
We must not be attached to the good; we must not be depressed by the bad.
The ups and downs are just part of the flow of life.
Susan Jeffers, Embracing Uncertainty
