What is real

Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. They constantly defile the silence of the forests and the mountains and the sea. They bore through silent nature in every direction with their machines, for fear that the calm world might accuse them of their own emptiness. The urgency of their swift movement seems to ignore the tranquility of nature by pretending to have a purpose. The loud plane seems for a moment to deny the reality of the clouds and of the sky, by its direction, its noise, and its pretended strength. The silence of the sky remains when the plane has gone. The tranquility of the clouds will remain when the plane has fallen apart. It is the silence of the world that is real. Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion.

Thomas Merton,  No Man Is An Island

Sunday Quote: On Friendship

If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.

John O’Donoghue

Character

I thought about the quote from Rilke in yesterday’s post in different ways during the day. It is not easy to “love the difficult”. But it seems true to me that in the difficult moments we get a glimpse of things that are really important, and that inspires our dreams, our understanding of happiness. Things feel more real, and the superficiality of a lot of our other contact is revealed.

Without doubt,  it is in the difficult that certain things become clearer. People’s real character, for example.  There are some things that can only be tested over time. A person’s depth is revealed in times of difficulty.  As is the quality of their friendship. The Old Testament expressed this by saying that a true friend was born and brought about for times of adversity.
And we can reflect:   In your most difficult moment, who is the one that you think about to be at your side?

The Other Side of the World

Happiness is not a place that is found outside of where we are right now.
If you wanted to find a perfect get-away from all your stress and unhappiness, where and how far would you go? To the other side of the world, to the International Space Station, or just the nearest bar? Your body would be somewhere else, but still, you would be taking your stressed, unhappy mind with you

Thich Nhat Hahn

Sunday Quote

We often ask, “What’s wrong?” Doing so we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We feel suffering, anger and depression and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us. We should learn to ask “What is not wrong?” and be in touch with that”.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Peace is Every Step

Cultivating Happiness

We can travel a long way and do many different things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. It is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home. True happiness may not be at all far away, but it requires a radical change of view as to where to find it.

Sharon Salzberg, Loving Kindness