Whenever one of these states arise, just know that it has arisen. To see feelings in the right way is to see them as a sort of imposter, not identifying them as ourselves. Anger or doubt are not us: they are not people or beings. So see them without giving them an identity, as just strangers coming in and then leaving. When there is cause they arise, and when there is no cause they fall away.
Ven Pramote Pamojjo, To see the Truth
photo daquella Manera
A lot of conversation in Ireland revolves around the weather. These days we wonder what the Summer will be like, or even stress about whether the weekend will allow a walk or a barbeque. In a way this unpredictability can support our practice and can lead to a reduction in stress: it reminds us that reality is always changing and that we have to be with the present however it manifests, open to possibility and not too fixed in expectations:
A large degree of life happens independent of, and often contrary to, your expectations. At first this may seem dismaying, but as you develop more and more awareness, you eventually start to realize that carrying around this jumble of expectations in your head is a burden and that it gets in the way of being present in, and responding to, the life you have.
Phillip Moffitt, Emotional Chaos to Clarity
photo of Lough Dan in Wicklow by Hugh C
Silence comes from the Latin word, silens, meaning to be still, quiet, or at rest. Other words related to it are: calm, peace, serenity, tranquility, poise, composure, noiselessness, hush, and solitude. In his description of stillness, Romano Guardini cuts to its very essence: “Stillness is the tranquility of the inner life; the quiet at the depths of its hidden streams. It is a collected, total presence, a being ‘all there,’ receptive, alert, ready . . . It is when the soul abandons the restlessness of purposeful activity.” Within this definition we learn silence’s first fundamental lesson: It is not so much a lack of sound as it is a cultivation of interior stillness.
Eugene Hemrick, Silence: Taken from the promise of virtue
The phoebe sits on her nest
Hour after hour,
Day after day,
Waiting for life to burst out
From under her warmth.
Can I weave a nest for silence,
Weave it out of listening,
Listening, Layer upon layer?
But one must first become small,
Nothing but a presence,
Attentive as a nesting bird,
Proffering no slightest wish,
No tendril of a wish
Toward anything that might happen
Or be given,
Only the warm, faithful waiting,
Contained in one’s smallness.
Beyond the question, the silence.
Before the answer, the silence.
May Sarton, Beyond the question, 1
The burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?
Third Zen Patriarch
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