The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.
Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
Lao Tzu
Category: Make the most of life
Inner strength
You are the sky.
Everything else – it’s just the weather.
Pema Chodron
A little light
Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say “How will the next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step that follows, with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.
Henri Nouwen
A fresh start
Start close in, don’t take the second step
or the third, start with the first
thing close in,
the step you don’t want to take.
Start with the ground you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own way of starting
the conversation.
Start with your own
question, give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them smother something
simple.
To find another’s voice
follow your own voice,
wait until that voice
becomes a private ear
listening to another.
Start right now, take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused, start close in,
don’t mistake that other
for your own.
Start close in,don’t take the second step
or the third, start with the first
thing close in,
the step you don’t want to take.
David Whyte, Start Close in
Placing things in a deeper context
A person is satisfied not by the quantity of food, but by the absence of greed. Gurdjieff
If we are silly enough to remain at the mercy of the people who want to sell us happiness, it will be impossible for us ever to be content with anything. How would they profit if we became content? We would no longer need their new product. The last thing the salesman wants is for the buyer to become content. You are of no use in our society unless you are always wanting to grasp what you never have. The Greeks were not as smart as we are. In their primitive way they put Tantalus in hell. [Advertising]…on the contrary, would convince us that Tantalus is in heaven.
Thomas Merton
How we grow
Our practice throughout our lifetime is just this: At any given time we have a rigid viewpoint or stance about life; it includes some things, it excludes others. We may stick with it for a long time, but if we are sincerely practicing our practice itself will shake up that viewpoint; we can’t maintain it. As we begin to question our viewpoint we may feel upset, as we try to come to terms with this new insight into our life; and for a long time we may deny it and struggle against it. That’s part of practice. Finally we become willing to experience our suffering instead of fighting it. When we do so our standpoint, our vision of life, abruptly shifts. Then once again, with our new viewpoint, we go along for a while – until the cycle begins anew. Once again the unease comes up. And we have to struggle, to go through it again. Each time we do this – each time we go into the suffering and let it be – our vision of life enlarges. It’s like climbing a mountain. At each point that we ascend we see more; and that becomes broader with each cycle of climbing… And the more we see, the more expansive our vision, the more we know what to do.
Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen: Love and Work
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