
Listening with new ears


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All mental activity, all these choices and possibilities, is confusing and even exhausting. Just as the body needs regular rest, so does the mind. To rest the mind in complete stillness, in pure awareness, is to return it to its original nature, its natural state. We don’t need to narrate all the events of our life. We don’t need the mind to comment internally on everything and everyone we encounter. This narration, these comments, separates us from just experiencing life as it is.
Jan Chozen Bays, How to Train a Wild Elephant
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The peculiar grace of a shaker chair is due to the fact
that it was made by someone capable of believing
that an angel might come and sit on it.
Thomas Merton
photo carl wycoff, Shaker Village, Pleasant Hill.

Those who don’t love themselves as they are rarely love life as it is either. Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain or even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength and greatness.
Rachel Naomi Remen