Category: Be fully present

Some consider that the start of March marks the start of Spring, even though this grey and misty morning in Kildare was not particularly Spring-like. However, there are little signs all around, birds gathering twigs for nests, buds on trees and big splashes of colour:

The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

May Sarton.

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;

There is nothing you can think that is not the moon

Basho

photo alan cleaver

There are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses throughout the entire earth,

and yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth.

Dogen

photo vera buhl

A few instructions on distractions in meditation from the wise and gentle Francis de Sales, who was based in the beautiful town of Annecy

If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently…
And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back,
though it went away every time you brought it back,
your hour would be very well employed.

Saint Francis de Sales

The interesting thing about this work is that we don’t really do anything for them. If we tried, I think we would fail miserably. Instead we invite them to do something radically new for themselves, namely to experiment with living intentionally from moment to moment. When I was talking to a reporter, she said, “Oh, you mean to live for the moment:” I said “No, it isn’t that. That has a hedonistic ring to it. I mean to live in the moment.

Jon Kabat-Zinn,  Full Catastrophe Living