Category: Be fully present

Resting in the knowing

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Through mindfulness practice you begin to experience how conditioned the world is and how these conditions constantly change. To free ourselves we need to quiet the mind through some mindfulness in meditation. Them, instead of identifying with the changing conditions, we learn to release them and turn toward consciousness itself, to rest in the knowing. Ajahn Chah called this pure awareness resting in “the One Who Knows”….The senses and the world are always changing conditions, but that which knows is unconditioned. With practice we discover the selflessness of experience; we shift identity. We can be in the midst of an experience, being upset or angry or caught by some problem, and then step back from it and rest in pure awareness.

Jack Kornfield, Bringing Home the Dharma

Being grounded for the future

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If we do not stand firmly in the present moment we may feel ungrounded when we look at the future. We may think that in the future we will be alone, with no place of refuge and no one to help us. Such concerns about the future bring about unease, anxiety and fear, and do not help us at all in taking care of the present moment. The best way of preparing for  the future is to take good care of the present, because we know that the present is made up of the past, then the future will be made up of the present. All we need to be responsible for is the present. Only the present is within our reach. To care for the present is to care for the future.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Our Appointment with life.

Each moment is sacred

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There is no less holiness at this time — as you are reading this — than there was the day the Red Sea parted . . . There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha’s bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said ‘Maid, arise’ to the centurion’s daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree.

Anne DIlliard, For the Time Being

Noticing our Wandering Mind

Karl Duffy3 Comments

Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed, “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation… Our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the nonpresent. A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness. In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged…. [So] ..The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.

Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind”, Science Magazine

Addicted to thinking

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Most of the time we are not aware of being alive. We are too busy living. Our daily dramas, plans and desires fill our minds: we are addicted storytellers (both waking and sleeping) constantly rehearsing scripts and scenarios that we wish to arise or that may arise. The more mental energy we give our stories, the faster they spin and the more intense the experience becomes. It is powerfully addictive and feeds on itself. It is the ultimate drug and like any drug, increasing amounts are needed to maintain the intensity. Should the intensity drop for any length of time, we believe that something has gone wrong…If we run out of fantasies to pursue, we say that life has become meaningless.

Simon Small, From the Bottom of the Pool

Things come toward us

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I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
And they come toward me, to meet and be met.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

 

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

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

May Sarton