Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.
Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now
Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?
The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment, but not seeking, not expecting, is present, and can welcome all things.
Lao Tzu
The moment is our constant guide. It is the doorway to all that matters. And slowing our presence to meet the heart of each moment opens us to the mystery and power of life. As Russell Means of the Lakota tribe says “Just because someone has invented a clock doesn’t mean you have to hurry through life”. When we rush by the moment, any moment, we miss the deep awareness that is always waiting to show itself. So often, when feeling bereft, we chase what we think is special, when that deep aliveness is waiting in the moment we are in.
Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen
Life is so short,
we should all move slowly.
Thich Nhat Hahn
The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.
Wendell Berry
We can only make one choice. Throughout our lives, we do only one thing – again and again, moment by moment, year by year. It is how we live our days, and it is how we shape our lives. The choice is this: what is the next right thing for us to do? Where, in this moment, shall we choose to place our time and attention? Do we stay or move, speak or keep silent, attend to this person, that task, move in this or that direction? …Our choices are small, quiet, intimate things that flow from us as water from a mountain spring, simple, endless, each thimble of water tumbling into the next, creating a small stream that somehow…inevitably, finds its way down the mountain to the sea.
Wayne Muller, A life of Being, Having and Doing Enough
