Blossoms in full bloom at the moment, but their beauty only lasts for about a week. In Japanese, the term used for passing beauty is 儚い (hakanai), meaning “fleeting” or “fragile”, reminding us to fully inhabit each moment without holding onto it
Better it is to live one day seeing the rise and fall of things
than to live as hundred years without ever seeing the rise and fall of things.
The Dhammapada, 8, 113
The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that the mind becomes like space that cannot be tainted. If someone throws paint, it is not the air that will change color. Space will not hold the paint; it will not grasp it in any way. Only the walls, the barriers to space, can be affected by the paint. The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that their minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned. No matter what kind of material is thrown into it, it will not burn. Many experiences – good, bad, and indifferent – are thrown into the flowing river of our lives, but we are not burned, owing to the power of the love in our hearts
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
Just the wind blowing: allowing life to move through this moment:
Take a comfortable position,
Now imagine you are in a beautiful place in nature. Surrounded by beauty you can feel the wind blowing around you
Let all of your conscious experience — sounds, sensations, thoughts, emotions, everything — become the wind.
Feel all of it moving and changing, arriving, moving around and over you, and then going.
Notice how the wind takes on different qualities — soft, strong, harsh, gusty, gentle.
Relax as the wind blows around you.
Let it come and go in all its forms. You remain here, in calmness, abiding.
Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstine, Daily Meditations for Calming Your Anxious Mind,
The wisdom that arises from mindfulness makes space for the sense of self to be and not to be.
Not believing any one these fleeting identities to be who we really are, we release being concerned about any of it. In fact, we sit back and watch the whole show like an amused grandmother, quietly watching over the antics of her grandchildren. This is the profound peace we are so busy searching for. It does not come from creating and perfecting our personality.
Freedom comes when we see through the machinations of “self” and cease to be bothered by or believe any of it.
Mark Coleman, From Suffering to Peace: The True Promise of Mindfulness
Externally, if you let go of fame and profit, your body will be at peace.
Inwardly, if you let go of over-thinking and rumination, your mind will be at peace.
Anonymous Taoist, late Qing dynasty (1644-1711), Secret Records of Understanding the Way,
Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything.
that really isn’t you
so you can be who you were meant to be
in the first place.
Paulo Coelho
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