Traps

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Imagine you are walking in the woods and you see a small dog sitting by a tree. As you approach it, it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. You are frightened and angry. But then you notice that one of its legs is caught in a trap. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern: You see that the dog’s aggression is coming from a place of vulnerability and pain. This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful ways, it is because we are caught in some kind of trap. The more we look through the eyes of wisdom at ourselves and one another, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart.

Tara Brach, True Refuge

Waves

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Let the waves of the universe rise and fall as they will.

You have nothing to gain or lose.

You are the ocean.

Ashtavakra Gita, Vedanta Scripture, c. 400 BC 

Sunday quote: Never certain

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Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you.

It is trust, not certainty

Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being

All things are charged with..

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Another Saturday, another piece from Mary Oliver

The dog, the donkey, surely they know they are alive. Who would argue otherwise? But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that. What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines? Listen, all you have to do is start and There?ll be no stopping. What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks? And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take years Before, finally, you hear them?

Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and if we knew how to touch them give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Letters

Trust the real

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The tragic sense of life is ironically not tragic at all, at least in the Big Picture. We are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.  The tragic sense of life is not unbelief, pessimism, fatalism, or cynicism.  It is just ultimate and humiliating realism, for which some reason demands a lot of forgiveness of almost everything.  Faith is simply to trust the real….  This is perhaps our major stumbling stone, the price we must pay to keep the human heart from closing down and to keep the soul open for something more.

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Letting go of expectations

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Equanimity balances the giving of your heart’s love with the recognition and acceptance that things are the way they are.

However much you may care for someone, however much you may do for others, however much you would like to control things (or wish that they were other than they are) equanimity is a reminder that all beings everywhere are responsible for their own actions, and for the consequences of their actions. Equanimity will allow you to open your heart and offer love, kindness, compassion, and joy, while letting go of your expectations and attachment to results. Equanimity gives you the energy to persist, regardless of the outcome, because you will be connected to the integrity of the effort itself.

Frank Jude Boccio, Calm Within