May you take time to celebrate
the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.
John O’Donohue, Benedictus
Today
Finding the way back home
Its important for me to meditate…to let go of my thoughts breath by breath and instead slowly lean back into that which was inside me before I was born, and which will endure when the rest of me dies. For me its like something I’ve longed for all my life, without knowing what it was. As though someone, for as long as I can remember, has been sitting on my shoulder whispering “Come home”
So how does one find the way back home? The best answer to that question I’ve come across so far comes from Meister Eckhart, a German priest in the early fourteenth century who was supposedly enlightened. After a Sunday sermon, an elderly member of his congregation came up to him and said “Meister Eckhart, you have clearly met God. Please help me to get to know God like you do. But your advice must be very simple as my memory is failing me”
“It’s very simple” Meister Eckhart replied. “All you need to do to meet God the way I have, is to fully understand who is looking out through your eyes”
Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, I May be Wrong, and other wisdoms from life as a Forest Monk.
Beyond
It is not a matter of looking for happiness
or trying to avoid suffering
but of going to the place beyond happiness or suffering
Ajahn Chah
Sunday Quote: Just trust
Do not be afraid;
our path
Cannot be taken from us;
it is a gift.
Non temer; che ‘l nostro passo non ci puo torre alcun…
Dante, Inferno, Canto VIII
You didn’t mess up
I feel gratitude to the Buddha for pointing out that what we struggle against all our lives can be acknowledged as ordinary experience.
Life does continually go up and down. People and situations are unpredictable and so is everything else.
Everybody knows the pain of getting what we don’t want: saints, sinners, winners, losers. I feel gratitude that someone saw the truth and pointed out that we don’t suffer this kind of pain because of our personal inability to get things right.
Pema Chodron
Watch the excuses
When you blame, you open up a world of excuses,
because as long as you’re looking outside,
you miss the opportunity to look inside,
and you continue to suffer.
Donna Quesada, Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers
Mindfulbalance 