Follow your own path

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Everyone must come out of his Exile in his own way

Martin Buber

Sunday Quote: Hold things lightly

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Aeschylus says, “There is no effort in what is divine.” There is an easiness in salvation which is more difficult to us than all our efforts.

In one of Grimm’s stories there is a competition between a giant and a little tailor to see which is the stronger. The giant throws a stone so high that it takes a very long time before it comes down again. The little tailor lets a bird fly and it does not come down at all. Anything without wings always comes down again in the end.

Simone Weil, Waiting on God

 

Stilling the mind’s questions

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I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

Mary Oliver, What Gorgeous Thing

Calling our lives to attention

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That the silent presence of your death

Would call your life to attention,

Wake you up to how scarce your time is

And to the urgency to become free

And equal to the call of your destiny.


That you would gather yourself

And decide carefully

How you can live

The life you would love

To look back on

From your deathbed.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Letting go of resistance

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In the garden of Gethsemane, the last words Jesus spoke were, “Stay awake.” In fact, he says it twice. The Buddha offered the same wisdom; “Buddha” actually means “I am awake.” 

Staying awake comes not from willpower but from a wholehearted surrender to this moment – as it is.  It’s largely a matter of letting go of resistance to what the moment offers or of clinging to a past moment. It is an acceptance of the full reality of what is right here and now. It will be the task of your whole lifetime.

 Richard Rohr, Just This

When feeling overwhelmed

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Meditation doesn’t change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart’s capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.

Sylvia Boorstein, Don’t Just do something, Sit There

He said not “Thou shalt not be troubled, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed,” but he said, “Thou shalt not be overcome.”

Julian of Norwich

All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,
Like dew or a flash of lightning; This is how you should observe and reflect.

The Diamond Sutra