Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Anton Chekhov
Appreciate
The heart
If I make a metaphor of my body,
it’s a desert. One part longing,
one part need, the rest withstanding. Of course
I would prefer to be thirsty
for nothing.
Kayleb Rae Candrilli, American poet
Seeking real treasure
I have just three things to teach
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures:
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 67
A rush to consume
In the second Noble Truth, the Buddha identified taṇhā – the urge to become, to have or consume more – as a main cause of our subtle discontent and ongoing stress. However, this underlying drive to consume can be observed and then its power diminishes. This is one meaning of “waking up”: becoming free by cutting off the momentum towards unhappiness at its source
If you sleep, restless craving (taṇhā) grows in you like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest you jump from tree to tree, never finding the fruit – from life to life, never finding peace. If you are filled with this restless craving, your sorrows will multiply like the grass growing after rain. But if you let craving go, your sorrows fall from you like drops of water from a lotus flower. This is good advice and it is for everyone: as the grass is cleared for fresh planting, let go of grasping lest death after death crush you as a river crushes helpless reeds. For if the roots hold firm, the felled tree grows up again. And if restless craving is not uprooted, sorrows will grow again in you.
Dhammapada
Stop feeding
Advent is traditionally considered a mini desert time, a time of preparation by simplification and reflection, somewhat different to the modern emphases in the weeks before Christmas
There is an ancient wisdom story from the desert fathers:
“Do not feed the heart what does not nourish the heart.”
We need to stop feeding the consumer machine, which tells us our worth by the newest gadget we have purchased, only to throw the last one in an ever-growing landfill. We need to stop perpetuating the cycles of violence by denouncing war but still letting our minds offer relentless judgments about the people we encounter every day.
We go off to our metaphorical deserts and wildernesses to really reevaluate our priorities.
Christine Valters Paintner
Sunday Quote: Start over
You will be shown the way forward when your wagon is overturned
Babylonian Proverb
Mindfulbalance 