Whatever is arising in this moment becomes the curriculum for liberating ourselves from the shackles of greed, hatred and delusion. We do not need some ideal or romantic fairy tale of what would be best for us. What we need most is what is already given to us: the actuality of things as they are in the only moment we will ever have – this one.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners.
Practice is not about highlighting all sorts of “good” qualities and getting rid of “bad” ones. No one is “good” or “bad.” The struggle to be good is not what practice is. That type of training is a subtle form of athleticism. We all hope to change, to get somewhere! That in itself is the basic fallacy. But just contemplating this desire begins to clarify it, and the practice basis of our life alters as we do so. We begin to comprehend that our frantic desire to get better, to get “somewhere,” is illusion itself, and the source of suffering.
Charlotte Joko Beck
“Last forever!” Who hasn’t prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.
Annie Dillard
In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel it’s impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but also about what it is to be human. All of us derive security and comfort from the imaginary world of memories and fantasies and plans. We really don’t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. it goes against the grain to stay present. The instruction is, Stay…stay…just stay. So whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to “stay” and settle down.
Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare you
If the angel deigns to come
it will be because you have convinced
her, not by tears but by your humble
resolve to be always beginning;
to be a beginner.
Rilke
“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died.
I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first signal – a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green.
An old man, he lay down between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire –
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches, he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Mary Oliver, The Buddha’s Last Instruction
