Stress is caused by being “here”
but wanting to be “there”.
It is a split that tears you apart inside
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Category: Be fully present
Happiness hidden in plain sight.
For most of us, leaving things alone turns out to be hard work! Without the hard work we don’t seem to be able to leave our life alone and just live. Faced with the dilemma of suffering we turn our life inside out, contorting our “ordinary mind” into an “isolated mind” that seeks to distance, control and dissociate an inner “me” from outer pain. ..Whether our project is the flight from pain or the pursuit of happiness, the outcome is the same: a life in flight from itself and from this moment. And this moment turns out to bethe only answer there is, the only self there is, the only teacher, and the only reality. All hidden in plain sight.
Barry Magid, Ordinary Mind
When complicated gets in the way
What I encourage is a moving toward simplicity, rather than complexity. We’re already complicated personalities. Our cultural and social conditioning is usually very complicated. We’re educated and literate, which means that we know a lot and have a lot of experience. This means that we are no longer simple. We’ve lost the simplicity that we had as children and have become rather complicated characters….What is most simple is to wake up – it’s as simple as that. The most profound teaching is the phrase “wake up”. Hearing this, one then asks, “what am I supposed to do next?” We complicate it again because we’re not used to being really awake and fully present. We’re used to thinking about things and analyzing them; trying to get something or get rid of something; achieving and attaining.
Ajahn Sumedho, Intuitive Awareness
Ordinary circumstances
It is natural to look for things you want outside of where you are now. That is the whole point of a journey. Yet this moment is all anyone has. So if freedom, love, beauty, grace, and whatever else is desirable are to appear, they must appear in the now. It would be nice if they appeared in the now you have now. And if they are to appear and endure they will have to be found in ordinary circumstances, since ordinary circumstances fill most of life.
John Tarrant, Bring me the Rhinoceros and other Zen Koans
Not getting tired
I saw a programme recently on G.K Chesterson and was reminded of this quote, similar in theme to the poem published yesterday morning. In it he encourages us to have eyes like children, seeing things as if for the first time, not tired and dulled by the fact that we have seen them before:
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
G.K Chesterson
Moment by moment, here is where I am
Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself
or get anywhere else,
but simply to realize where you already are.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Wherever you Go, There you are.
