Once or twice a year the abbot at the San Francisco Zen Center, Tenshin Reb Anderson, comes to speak with the hospice volunteers.
One night he gave a talk that included the best advice I’ve ever heard on caregiving.
He said simply, “Stay close and do nothing.”
That’s how we try to practice at Zen Hospice Project.
We stay close and do nothing. We sit still and listen to the stories.
Frank Ostaseski
9th century Zen master, Tozan Ryokai, attained enlightenment many times. Once when he was crossing a river he saw himself reflected in the water and composed a verse, “Don’t try to figure out who you are. If you figure out who you are, what you understand will be far away from you. You will have just an image of yourself.”
Actually, you are in the river. You may say that is just a shadow or a reflection of yourself, but if you look carefully with warm-hearted feeling, that is you. You may think you are very warm-hearted, but when you try to understand how warm, you cannot actually measure. Yet when you see yourself with a warm feeling in the mirror or the water, that is actually you. And whatever you do, you are there.
Suzuki Roshi, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen
May we all grow in grace and peace,
and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being.
It will not fail us.
Thomas Merton, Letters
Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion.
What you perceive as precious is not time
but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed.
The more you are focused on time – past and future – the more you miss the Now,
the most precious thing
there is.
Eckhart Tolle
If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life,
your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.
Rabindranath Tagore
Our lives ask us to die and be reborn every time we confront change – change within ourselves and change in our world. When we descend all the way down to the bottom of a loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self — the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey. This is the way to live a meaningful and hopeful life — a life of real happiness and inner peace.
Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open
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