The beginning of being fine is noticing how things really are.
1. Life is uncertain, surprises are likely.
2. If you are alive, that’s good; lower the bar.
3. In a dark place, you still have what really counts.
4. If you are in a predicament, there will be a gate.
5. What you need might be given to you.
6. The true life is in between winning and losing.
7. If you have nothing – give it away.
John Tarrant, It Would Be a Pity to Waste A Good Crisis
It was early on in my first meditation class. We had been taught about breathing from our haras [the lower abdomen] and the importance of straight backs and shoulders. I had discovered the knee pain that comes with sitting longer than, say, a half hour. It was overwhelming. Then a tiny little Thich Nhat Hanh teaching, casually expressed, changed my whole experience. It was this:
“Breathing in, I calm body and mind.
Breathing out, I smile.”
Suddenly it was okay to not try to be some samurai warrior meditating through grit teeth. Instead my job was to relax into the posture and to enjoy myself. Behind all of the jetsom and flotsam of everyday life that was circling around in my head like a scrabble game gone rogue was a smile. I still think of this teaching every day.
Geri Larkin, How Can I Love you Better?
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We complain a lot about the ever-changing weather in Ireland; this week alone storms and snow, cold and fog…
Every day, priests minutely examine the Teachings
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by
The wind and rain, the snow and moon.
Ikkyu, 1394–1481
When we don’t have sufficient information about what is happening around us, we create meaning. The problem is…this meaning is largely negative. We personalize events and other peoples reactions, interpreting them as responding to us when they aren’t. For example, we decide a person is judgmental because they are frowning while we talk, when we are actually missing the fact that this person always frowns when they are listening carefully. We make us a story that they dislike us, which makes us afraid of them. Why? Because negative facts make a stronger impression on us than positive or neutral ones.
From a nice little book – Leah Weiss, The Little Book of Bhavana
Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river.
The river is flowing.
We are in it.
Richard Rohr
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