You spend so much of your time
expecting to become someone else
always someone who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you
meanwhile in your life you hardly notice
the world around you, lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself
with whom as you recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long
William Stanley Merwin, American poet, To Waiting
Ideas lead to idols
Only wonder leads to knowing
Gregory of Nyssa
Experiencing,
rather than trying to have special experiences,
is where real freedom lies
Ezra Bayda, At Home in the Muddy Water
photo berit
A crucial skill for minimizing emotional chaos and sustaining clarity in your life is the ability to distinguish between your experience and your interpretation of your experience. Your experience is simply whatever is happening in the moment — a sound, a taste, a bodily sensation, an emotion, any kind of interaction, etc. Your interpretation is your mind’s reaction to that experience. One way to understand this difference to to practice that when you are directly experience a moment of life, you are within it, when you are interpreting it, you are outside it……. The next step toward breaking your habit of automatically interpreting every experience is to practice being mindful from moment to moment of the distinction between experience and interpretation. Begin to notice, ‘Is there a difference between my direct experience of what’s going on and how I’ve interpreted it?’ You’ll need to practice noticing over and over again before you really start to know the difference. The more you’re able to distinguish experience, from interpretation, the more you’ll be able to stay in the moment, the calmer you’ll be, and the more choice you’ll have for responding skillfully to whatever circumstances arise.
Phillip Moffitt, From Emotional Chaos to Clarity
The ability to drop into the present is sometimes referred to as child-mind, because children, little ones, look at things that openly, from that degree of relaxation, from that degree of nowness. Can you remember what it was like as a child, sitting under a bush and how it smelled, going to grandmothers and how her house or garden smelled, and how her perfume smelled? Think of a child going to a museum and not having a clue that what they are seeing is a Picasso or a Renoir. Children just look with this kind of open awareness.
Pema Chodron, How to Meditate
