The latest update from hospital on Thich Nhat Hahn is that he is making “extraordinary progress” . So here, at the start of a new month, is a small reminder of the message which he always returns to:
The present moment is filled with joy and happiness.
If you are attentive, you will see it
Thich Nhat Hahn
photo john tann
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
photo paul stocker
When we do the best that we can,
we never know what miracle is wrought in our life,
or in the life of another.
Helen Keller
photo alex proimos
The mind is like a mirror that reflects everything. Like a mirror, the mind is not damaged by anything it is reflecting. A mirror can reflect the ugliest, nastiest thing in the whole world and still remains untarnished, even though the reflection is terrible. The mind is like that mirror: the reflections can be very impure or ugly or vicious, or they can be very beautiful. If we try to punish the mirror, if we destroy or crack the mirror, we go crazy – then we are really stuck. But, if we are willing to, we can recognize that the reflection in the mirror simply is as it is. This recognition is a skilful way of dealing with thoughts and feelings that may be very unpleasant for us.
Ajahn Sumedho
We had a wild, wet and windy Sunday, and snow early this morning, and we see the reports of very cold weather in the US and in Eastern Europe. Always a useful way to practice – we see that we like to label our experience (“bad weather today”) and it also prompts us to reflect on how we are working with the changing conditions in our inner lives and in each day. as this quote from Toni Parker reminds us:
We call it “weather” but what is it really? Wind. Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the words spoken about it, but just this darkening, blowing, pounding, wetting, and then lightening up, blue sky appearing amidst darkness, and sunshine sparkling on wet grasses and leaves. In a little while there will be frost, snow and ice-covers. And then warming again, melting, oozing water everywhere. On an early spring day the dirt road sparkles with streams of wet silver. So — what is “weather” other than this incessant change of earthly conditions and all the human thoughts, feelings, and undertakings influenced by it: Like and dislike. Depression and elation. Creation and destruction? No entity “weather” to be found except in thinking and talking about it.
Now — is there such an entity as “me,” “I,” “myself?” Or is it just like the “weather” — an ongoing, ever-changing stream of ideas, images, memories, projections, likes and dislikes, creations and destructions, which thought keeps calling “I,” “me,” “Toni,” and thereby solidifying what is evanescent? What am I really, truly, and what do I think and believe I am? Are we interested in exploring this amazing affair of “myself” from moment to moment?
Toni Parker, The Wonder of Presence and the Way of Meditative Inquiry
We pray for the big things
and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
photo maxo
