Inner calmness is a way of being that can transform our lives. Taking one thing at a time as our focus, letting the imperfections of life be, fosters a sense of the present, a contentment with the moment. At first our meditation may develop in some ways but still be mixed with a quality of striving or judgment. As we sit, extraordinary levels of silence & peace can open for us.
We can learn how happiness comes from a heart at rest and not from changing outer circumstances.
Jack Kornfield
Ancient wisdom for the day that is in it. It can apply to both people outside of us or to the complaining voice inside of us that forever “argues” with how things are:
Get away from any man who always argues every time he talks.
Abbot Pastor in Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century
Happiness is permanent. It is always there. What comes and goes is unhappiness. If you identify with what comes and goes, you will be unhappy. If you identify with what is permanent and always there, you are happiness itself.
Sri H. W. L. Poonja, 1910 – 1997, Indian sage
All Saints Day, starting a month were there is an emphasis on simplifying, remembering and integrating, imitating the slower pace of nature. This is somewhat different to the current fashion of accumulating and rushing around at this time, as the main shopping festivals arrive.
Maybe a side effect of the pandemic this year will be to slow things down and remind us of what is important
The man to whom little is not enough
will not benefit from more.
Saint Columbanus, 540 – 615, Irish monk, missionary and founder of monasteries.
One is satisfied not by the quantity of food, but by the absence of greed.
Gurdjieff, 1866- 1949
This evening is the most important Celtic feast of the year – Samhain -which celebrates the end of the year – with its light and growth – and the start of a new period, marked by darkness and rest. These themes are somewhat reflected in the celebration of Halloween.
These days the mind has plenty of material to create fears, from the resurgent virus and its impact on the economy, to politics and divisions. These outside events can enter our minds as fearful agitated energies:
We create big problems for ourselves by not recognizing mind energies when they arrive dressed up as ghosts. They are like the neighbor’s children disguised as Halloween ghosts. When we open the door and find the child next door dressed in a sheet, even though it looks like a ghost, we remember it is simply the child next door. And when I remember the dramas of my life are the energies of the mind dressed up in the sheet of a story, I manage them more gracefully.
Sylvia Boorstein
Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls….
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
Philip Booth, 1925 – 2007, American poet, First Lesson
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