Zen pretty much comes down to three things –
Everything changes,
Everything is connected,
Pay attention.
Jane Hirshfield
photo laima Gūtmane (simka…
Category: Be fully present
Fearless receptivity
We can’t travel with others in territory that we haven’t explored ourselves. It is the exploration of our own inner life that enables us to form an empathetic bridge to the other person. It’s our task to trust, to listen, and to pay careful attention to the changing experience. At the deepest level, we are being asked to cultivate a kind of fearless receptivity.
This is a journey of continuous discovery in which we will always be entering new territory. We have no idea how it will turn out, and it takes courage and flexibility. We find a balance. The journey is a mystery we need to live into, opening, risking, and forgiving constantly.
Frank Ostaseski
photo juanedc
No stories, just enjoy
It is no easy matter to stop short at just seeing.
Mahasi Sayadaw.
photo blue plover
Needs no comment
Awareness is the centre of what we call ‘mind’, but normally of course, the mind is awareness plus regret, or longing, or analysis, or sidetrack and rumbling trains of thought moving forward, backwards – or anywhere except the simply open present. So it takes training, but with guidance and effort, the meditator centres on awareness as the feature of the mind that is constant, irreducible and needs no comment. Consequently, as awareness releases from these associated activities, it is revealed in its depth and warm beauty. It’s a given treasure.
Ajahn Sucitto, Mind out of Time
phto Laitche
Waiting
In the Islamic tradition, during Ramadam, there is a special night called the Night of Power, when angels are said to descend to earth, bringing peace. It is not known which night it is exactly, so the only attitude to have is one of waiting and watching. This is true for Advent also, but it even applies not just to special seasons but to the mystery in every moment:
God,
just like the Night of Power,
is hidden amidst the other nights
So that the soul
will go on seeking every night.
Oh young one,
not every night is the Night of Power
And yet,
not every night
is bereft of the Night of Power
Rumi
photo CC-BY
Grace and wonder and mystery
Everything we need or want is waiting inside each day … right before us in flawed abundance …nothing is clean or perfect, and nothing unfolds as planned. For the Universe is vital, not perfect. Full of endless seeds attempting to be one thing, colliding with another, and becoming a third.
One of the more difficult paradoxes to accept is that this abundance of gifts is always quietly present and it is we who drift in and out of seeing it. The one recurring doorway to this vitality is our simple participation in life. When we slip into heartless watching, the abundance seems to vanish. When we dare to show up and be fully present, grace and wonder and mystery start to appear, even in the midst of pain. Not as planned dreams, or as images of lovers, or as scripts of success designed by our fantasies of ourselves. But as oddly shaped pods of vitality bursting to multiply and bring us further into the mystery of living.
Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk.
photo anemoneprojectors
