Category: Be fully present

The heart of practice….

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One learns only one thing,

how to rejoice in life.

Osho

Trust in awareness

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We really have to determine to recognize and open to that which is emotionally challenging, that which is very powerful, overwhelming, frightening or threatening. Yet through the confidence of awareness, we begin to observe how these difficult situations affect the mind, the heart. What is the feeling? It’s not right or wrong. A feeling is what it is, and only we can know it. If we trust our awareness, we know it’s like this. We don’t need to have a word for it or define it in any way, because it is what it is. This is not cultural conditioning or the ego. It is direct knowing.

Ajahn Sumedho

Such as we are

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A Zen Master once said simply, “We are saved such as we are”.  Mindfulness has been such a blessed relief because it has given me a way to hold everything in my life compassionately, just as it is. Over years of practice, almost invisibly, mindfulness has been slowly stitching the old wound of feeling not enough…. As we can bow to the wounds in ourselves and the wounds in others the wounds begin, in their own time, with grace to close. The great way is not difficult if we don’t pick and choose.

Gordon Peerman, Blessed Relief: What Christians can learn from Buddhists about Suffering

Image taken from The Kitsch and the Curious Blog

Sunday Quote: Everything is in the present

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The past is a memory of a former Now;

the future is a mental projection of an expected Now.

Eckhard Tolle

Glancing around constantly

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We did not survive in nature by ignoring incoming stimuli, and like birds or chipmunks are more accustomed to glancing around constantly, attentive to both threat and opportunity. But we are no longer crouching in a hostile, natural environment and the states to which our mind restlessly turns…are generally internally constructed threats and imaginary opportunities.

The cultivation of mental focus, the consistent return to a primary object, and the settling into ever greater states of tranquility has the effect of gradually reigning in the mind’s random wandering and settles it down in a way that gathers and consolidates the power of awareness. Awareness is the primary currency of the human condition, and as such it is inherently of immense value and deserves to be spent carefully. Merely sitting in a serene environment, letting go of the various petty disturbances that roil and diminish consciousness and experiencing as fully as possible the poignancy of the fleeting moment – this is an enterprise of deep intrinsic value, and aesthetic experience beyond words.

Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind

This day will not come again

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A lord asked Takuan, a Zen Teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others. Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:

Not twice this day

Inch time foot gem.

This day will not come again.

Each minute is worth a priceless gem.

Takuan Soho, Zen Teacher, 1573 – 1645.