Like a mother

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Almost no one is exempt from trauma. While some people have it in a more pronounced way than others, the unpredictable and unstable nature of things makes life inherently traumatic.

What the Buddha revealed through his dreams was that, true as this may be, the mind, by its very nature, is capable of holding trauma much the way a mother naturally relates to a baby.

One does not have to be helpless and fearful, not does one have to be hostile and self-reverential. the mind knows intuitively how to find a middle path. Its implicit relational capacity is hardwired

Mark Epstein, The Trauma of Everyday Life

Stuck in repeat

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The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness.

Of these, only three involve misery or suffering.

 Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.

Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

Acceptance and openness

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When you combine acceptance with responsibility and defenselessness, your work becomes an expression of your higher purpose.

You stop wasting energy resisting office politics, stressing over deadlines, or obsessing over outcomes.

Instead, you focus on creative solutions, trusting that the universe will support your intentions when you act in alignment with truth and compassion.

Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

Sunday Quote: Live by love

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trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)

e e cummings, dive for dreams

a grateful life

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Picked some ripe blackberries beside the woodland path I walked along yesterday evening. Freely given, like all of life, and not to be taken, as we say, “for granted.” The only real response is gratefulness.

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.

Mary Oliver, The Gift

Underneath

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The peace that is the nature of being is not a state of the mind; it is the nature of the mind.

It is the peace that passeth understanding –

the peace that has nothing to do with what is, or what is not, taking place in experience

Rupert Spira, Your True Home, A Meditation on Experience