God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear: “You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing“….
Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.
Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 59
There will always be times when you feel discouraged.
I too, have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it.
I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Do not rule over imaginary kingdoms of endlessly proliferating possibilities.
Geshe Shawopa 1070–1141(?), quoted in Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of my Perfect teacher
We often ask, ‘what’s wrong?’ Doing so, we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We feel suffering, anger, and depression, and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us. We should learn to ask, ‘what’s not wrong?’ and be in touch with that.
One of my favourite thoughts from Thich Nhat Hahn, who died yesterday, aged 95
Birth, old age, Sickness, and death:
From the beginning this is the way things have always been.
Any thought of release from this life will wrap you only more tightly in its snares.
The sleeping person looks for a Buddha, The troubled person turns toward meditation.
But the one who knows that there’s nothing to seek, knows too that there’s nothing to say.
She keeps her mouth closed.
Ly Ngoc Kieu, 1041 – 1113, Vietnamese zen Buddhist nun.
Translation Thich Nhat Hahn and Jane Hirshfield
The human body at peace with itself
Is more precious than the rarest gem.
Cherish your body.
It is yours this time only.
The human form is won with difficulty.
It is easy to lose.
All worldly things are brief,
Like a flash of lightning in the sky.
This life you must know as the tiny splash of a raindrop
That disappears even as it comes into being.
Therefore set your goal.
Make use of every day and night to achieve it
Je Tsongkhapa, 1357–1419, Tibetan Buddhist monk
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