Brooding

Think of a problem that has plagued you for a long time – your weight, a loved one’s bad habits, fear of terrorism, whatever. No doubt you’ve tried valiantly to control this issue, but are your efforts working? The answer has to be no; otherwise you would have solved the problem long ago. What if your real trouble isn’t the issue you brood about so compulsively, but the brooding itself?

Martha Beck

Let go of who you think you are

Let go, and respond to the immediate needs around you. Don’t get caught in some false perception of yourself. There will always be another person more gifted than you. And don’t perceive your position as important, but be ready to serve at any moment. If you can let go of who you think you are, you will become free – ready to love others. If you learn to see your impermanence, you will be able to live for the moment and not miss opportunities to love by pushing things into the future.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Courage

Everyone who moves on

walks like Jesus,

on the sea

Antonio Machado,  1875 – 1939, Spanish poet.

Sunday Quote: A good plan

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment

Rumi

The grass is green

We have to be patient with ourselves. Over and over again we think we need to be somewhere else, and we must find the truth right here, right now; we must find our joy here, now. How seductive it is, the thought of tomorrow. We must find our understanding here. We must find it here; it is always here; this is where the grass is green.

John Tarrant Calling on the name of Avalokiteshvara

Beyond our reach

We are locked inside our brains, cut off from the present moment, always centered on something beyond our reach. We are imagining this mirage of happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment which will magically appear once this and this and this happens. But what’s happening right now is “it” and it’s the only “it” we have. The rest is just fabrication.

Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a Mountain Lake