Category: Make the most of life

Giving life’s events some space and time

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More lessons from these three days. There are different ways of saying that at times we need to be patient, to sit in silence and wait for the real meaning of what is happening to become clear. It is put beautifully in this quote: we need to give difficult periods the space their “gentle origins” demand. We do not need to “add on” stories, which only ultimately make things more difficult.

If you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge – from which new sorrows will be born for others – then sorrow will never cease in this world and will multiply. And if you have given sorrow the space its gentle origins demand, then you may truly say: life is beautiful and so rich.

Etty  Hillesum

Waiting: the patience that is found in Nature

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The Lily is a symbol of Easter, being associated with new life and a pure offering to God. In this poem, Mary Oliver sees the flower silently following night and day, darkness and light, the up’s and down’s of life, trusting, knowing that the dawn will follow the night. It is a thought which suits this Easter Saturday,-  starting , as it has, in more muted colours than the glorious sunshine of yesterday – a day which places the emphasis on waiting. The flower waits for the silver moon and the golden sun, which are often used to refer to the unconscious, unknown part of our lives and the conscious, known parts.  It trusts that what is now unconscious will become conscious in time. This trust is a  quiet, contented attitude – the trust of a child  who knows that ultimately all is good  –  an attitude that we  cultivate when we sit in meditation.

Night after night, darkness enters the face
of the lily which, lightly, closes its five walls around itself,
and its purse of honey, and its fragrance,
and is content to stand there
in the garden, not quite sleeping,
and, maybe, saying in lily language
some small words we can’t hear
even when there is no wind anywhere,
its lips are so secret, its tongue is so hidden –
or, maybe, it says nothing at all
but just stands there
with the patience
of vegetables and saints
until the whole earth has turned around
and the silver moon
becomes the golden sun –
as the lily absolutely knew it would,
which is itself, isn’t it, the perfect prayer?

Mary Oliver, The Lily

A fruitful loneliness

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It is a recurrent theme in human history,  and in the different wisdom traditions on days like Good Friday, that the places where we are hurt are often the places where we grow the most. Thus the places of darkness are difficult and fruitful at the same time:

Life may be brimming over with experiences,

but somewhere, deep inside,

all of us carry a vast and fruitful loneliness wherever we go.

Etty Hillesum


Developing peace: reconcile and forgive

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Forgiveness is not always easy.

At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. 

And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

Marianne Williamson

Sunday quote: Listen

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The first duty of love is to listen

Paul Tillich

We don’t need to be perfect: Stop running, be “good enough”

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More on what I wrote about earlier this week prompted by seeing the hawk,  and echoing Ajahn Sumedho’s words this morning,  on simply being ourselves, and believing that this is enough, that it is a safe place to be.  Over these past weeks I have met a lot of people who were tormented by self-doubt, by thoughts of never being “good enough”. Often this has led  them to adopt strategies of pushing themselves in order to cover up some deep sense of lack. Some were afraid to admit their own needs because they had come to believe that the only way of being accepted was to be the perfect partner, the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend, doing everything for the other.  Or others responded to their inner insecurity by controlling their partner  or life so much, thus ensuring that they will therefore never leave them or never be left just with themselves.

Healing comes when we realize that we are perfect, just as we are, before we do anything, from being secure in our sense of self. The more we can sit simply with ourselves, the more we realize that everything we need for our happiness is already here, even with  the histories we have had or the disappointments we have endured. Once again we can learn from nature:  like the still  hawk in the sky  or the silent rose in  the quote below, we try to be still and not run after happiness outside ourselves. Agere sequitur esse as the Medieval Philosophers liked to remind us: our actions flow out of our being. However, this is not just a philosophical truth. It is a practical way of increasing happiness moment by moment, day by day. Let go of all we think we have to add on to ourselves in order to be accepted or for this moment to be whole.

Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You don’t have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just the way you are. This teaching …. allows us to enjoy ourselves, the blue sky, and everything that is refreshing and healing in the present moment. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness. Aimlessness is stopping and realizing the happiness that is already available.

Thich Nhat Hahn