Affection would not be affection, if it was loudly and frequently expressed . . . It lives with humble, un-dress, private things; soft slippers, old clothes, old jokes, the thump of a sleepy dog’s tail on the kitchen floor.
C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves,
It is the imperative in the mind that this moment somehow be different, that causes suffering. Peace is possible, here and now, in the middle of the world, in the middle of a life, in the middle of a body, in the middle of however you are and however the world is. Change may or may not happen in a way that we like. But the mind has a capability of saying “It’s like this, and I can manage it”, without creating extra difficulty. There is a path to peace. The path is a doable, cultivable skill of awareness in the mind.
Sylvia Boorstein, Greet this moment as a Friend
Ordinariness is a simple presence in this moment that allows the mystery of life to show itself. When Thoreau warns us to “beware of any activity that requires the purchase of new clothes” he reminds us that simplicity is the way we open to everyday wonder. While consciousness can create a variety of forms, ordinariness is interested in what is here and now. This is the ordinary mystery of breathing or of walking, the mystery of trees on our streets or of loving someone near to us. It is not based on attaining mystical states or extraordinary powers. It does not seek to become something special, but is emptying, listening.
Jack Kornfield, Bringing home the Dharma
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Mary Oliver, Sometimes
And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light,
there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself,
and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. . . .
I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life
I too dip myself toward the immeasurable.
The value of a life does not depend on the place we occupy;
It depends on the way we occupy that place.
Therese of Lisieux
