Seeing life through filters

 

At times, I guess we all see life through our fears and our conditioning.   In these moments we fail to relate to what is actually here, but filter life through our ideas of where things should be, or how others are out to get us and who is to blame and how we should defend ourselves.

The aim of our practice is to  release the mind from suffering and stress. This is best achieved by dropping these judgmental filters and by being willing to be here with whatever is arising, in an open way. The day as it unfolds is always within our reach. We just have to stay connected to it.

The great blessings of humankind are within us and within our reach;

but we shut our eyes,

and, like people in the dark,

we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it.

Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher, 4 BC – 65 AD

Having time to notice

 

The whole of life lies in the verb seeing

Teilhard de Chardin

How to get through today without stress

Identification with the mind gives it more energy;

observation of the mind withdraws energy from it.

Eckhart Tolle

Sunday Quote: At home

The spiritual life is about becoming more at home in your own skin

Parker Palmer

Just be yourself

When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves.

That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.

Shunryū Suzuki, 1904 – 1971, Shikantaza: Living Fully In Each Moment

Simple treasures

 

The little things? The little moments?

They aren’t little.  

Jon Kabat Zinn

Oh Soul,

You worry too much

Your arms are filled with treasures of all kinds

Rumi