Do not feel overwhelmed by the length of this journey.
All you ever need do is focus on one thing, what you are doing.
Stay on the path and put one foot in front of the other – that is all.
There is joy in the struggle.
Philip Toshio Sudo
Category: Be fully present
…and artichokes
Even
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bittered
and darkening
waters
grows tender,
grows tender and sweet
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bittered
and darkening
waters
grows tender,
grows tender and sweet
patience, I think,
my species
my species
keep testing the spiny leaves
the spiny heart
Jane Hirshfield, My species
….Caterpillars
It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.
Ram Dass
Sunday Quote: Beautiful
In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.
Blaise Pascal
A motto for September
More from Chuang Tzu, just to start the month in a Taoist frame of mind:
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.
That’s the key
The teachings about recognizing egolessness sound quite abstract, but the path quality of that, the magic instruction that we have all received, the golden key is that part of the meditation technique where you recognize what’s happening with you and you say to yourself, “Thinking.” Then you let go of all the talking and the fabrication and discussion, and you’re left just sitting with the weather – the quality and the energy of the weather itself. Maybe you still have that quaky feeling or that churning feeling or that exploding feeling or that calm feeling or that dull feeling, as if you’d just been buried in the earth. You’re left with that. That’s the key: come to know that.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape
Mindfulbalance 