True freedom is living as if you had completely chosen
whatever you feel or experience in this moment.
This inner alignment with the Now is the end of suffering
Eckhart Tolle, Silence Speaks
photo Sharada Prasad
Category: Be fully present
Choosing
We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid,
or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.
We always have this choice.
Pema Chodron
Enough light
Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.
Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
Donne–nous aujourd‘hui notre pain de ce jour
French translation Matthew 6:11
photo Sasikanth balachandran
Sunday Quote: Begin again
If the angel deigns to reappear
It is because you have persuaded him
not with tears but with your humble decision always to begin again
Rainer Maria Rilke
photo mark voorendt
Dropping the filter
A similar idea to yesterday’s, this time from the Eastern traditions, to guide us as we “wander” through this day. What we think we know can sometimes get in the way, or close us down, to what is happening before us:
Jizo asked Hogen, “Where are you going?”
“I just wander aimlessly” replied Hogen.
“What is the nature of your wandering,” asked Jizo.
“I don’t know,” replied Hogen.
“Not knowing is the most intimate,” replied Jizo.
And at this Hogen experienced great enlightenment.
Zen Story
One Zen story states, “Not knowing is most intimate.” I understand this to mean that what is most essential is not understood through the filter of our judgments, past knowledge, or memories. When not-knowing helps these to drop away, the result can be a greater immediacy – what some might call being intimate. This practice of beginner’s mind is to cultivate an ability to meet life without preconceived ideas, interpretations, or judgments.
Gil Fronsdal
photo: Pfctdayelise
Not knowing
The great Meister Eckhart knew that life was much greater than what he could grasp or make sense of. He reminds us that holding a space for what we do not know is just as important as our ideas and concepts about what is happening. What do we really know about ourselves, our experience, our world?:
“I ask God to rid me of God,” Meister Eckhart says.
The God, who is known and familiar, is far too small for him.
Dorothee Sölle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance
photo sayhey1111
