Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone should behave. But it is not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.
Ajahn Sumedho
One way to have good perspective is to see the world through the eyes of a child. We innocently report. We accept how others think and feel. If something is had or sad, or we’re scared, we say that. We say how we feel and what we want and need. We know that when we’re tired, we see things out of focus. And when things get too difficult, we either go play in the park or we take a nap.
Somehow we know that everything will work out.
Melody Beattie
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.
Sometimes withdrawal and letting go is as much part of growth as is achievement and moving forward:
There is a tendency to want to hurry from autumn to spring, to avoid the long dark days that winter brings. But winter darkness has a positive side to it. As we gather to celebrate the first turn from winter to spring, we are invited to recognize and honor the beauty in the often unwanted season of winter. Let us invite our hearts to be glad for the courage winter proclaims. Let us be grateful for the wisdom winter brings in teaching us about the need for withdrawal as an essential part of renewal. Let us also encourage our spirits as Earth prepares to come forth from this time of withdrawal into a season filled with light.
Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr, The Circle of Life
The shortest days of the year. The balance between light and darkness. A time to let go of those thoughts which hold us back and stand firm in that which we are
I move in the descent of days
from what was dreamed to what remains.
Wendell Berry, Boone
Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past.
To come into the present is to stop the war.
Jack Kornfield
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