In the deepest forms of insight we see that things change so quickly that we can’t hold onto anything,
and eventually the mind lets go of clinging.
Letting go brings equanimity. The greater the letting go, the deeper the equanimity.
In practice we work to expand the range of life experiences in which we are free.
U Pandita
photo brookie
There are many different ideas of “you” in your mind, each with its own agenda. Each of these “you’s” is a member of the committee of the mind. This is why the mind is less like a single mind and more like an unruly throng of people: lots of different voices, with lots of different opinions about what you should do. Some members of the committee are open and honest about the assumptions underlying their central desires. Others are more obscure and devious. …One of the purposes of meditation is to bring these dealings out into the open, so that you can bring more order to the committee — so that your desires for happiness work less at cross purposes, and more in harmony as you realize that they don’t always have to be in conflict.
Thanissaro Bhikku
A change in the weather in Ireland this morning – gone noticeably cooler – but it still remains bright and clear. A perfect day for a Autumnal walk, to appreciate the changing colours. Tuning into the change in nature’s rhythms is good for our internal sense of balance, as we see that things arise and pass away, and that life cannot be composed only of periods of growth and achievement. However, walking has significant physical health benefits also, as studies show that being out in natural light increases serotonin levels in the brain, as even on a cloudy day the light outside is normally greater than what can be achieved indoors. Thus, a break away from the desk or the computer helps us to let go of some of the stresses that each day brings and see things in perspective:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
“This is boring” or “This is not working”, or “I can’t do this”. These are judgments.
Actually they are just thoughts.
It is important to recognize them as judgmental thinking and remind yourself that our practice involves suspending judgment and just watching whatever comes up, without pursuing them or acting in any way
Jon Kabat Zinn
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
photo Glendalough, County Wicklow ,Ireland by cqui
Who hasn’t thought, “Take me with you,”
hearing the wind go by?
And finding himself left behind, resumed
his own true version of time
on earth, a seed fallen here to die
and be born a thing promised
in the one dream
every cell of him has dreamed headlong
since infancy, every common minute has served.
Born twice, he has two mothers, one who dies, and one
the mortar in which he’s tried. His double
nature cleaves his eye, splits his voice.
So if you hear him say, while he sits at the bed
of one mother, “Take me home,”
listen closer. To Life,
he says, “Keep me at heart.”
Li-Young Lee, American Poet, To Life
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