A real miracle

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I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child  – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

photo richard webb

Sunday Quote : When we stay quiet

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Silence is the closest thing to God we know.

Meister Eckhart

photo briyyz

The value of waiting

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Waiting is not a very popular attitude. Waiting is not something that people think about with great sympathy. In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, “Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don’t just sit there and wait!” For many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go. And people do not like such a place. They want to get out of it by doing something…

Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands…But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing…Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it… Waiting is essential to the spiritual life.

Henri Nouwen, Waiting for God

photo nir b

A day to be still

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Let the mind rest at peace.

The Ten Thousand Things rise and fall,  while the self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

photo eric hill

 

Giving full attention to the task

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Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.

Simone Weil, French Philosopher and writer,

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes.

Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Alan Watts

Right here, right now

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It [our way] is never apart from this very place;

what is the use of traveling around to practice?

Dogen,   General Advice on the Principles of Zazen