“Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in a dewdrop on a blade of grass. The moon does not get wet, nor is the drop of water broken.
And the whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in even one drop of water”. Dogen,
In truth, the smallest stem of a damaged heart, like a single blade of grass, holds the essence of everything alive.
Enlightenment is the kiss of anything – moon, storm, or kindness – that opens us to that essence.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
The earthquake shakes you awake, and then that’s sort of the big spiritual question: How do you stay awake? …
The other question is: Why has everything we’ve ever been told about human nature misled us about what happens in these moments?
Rebecca Solnit
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
