Mind has no colour; it is not long or short;
it does not vanish or appear; it is free from purity and impurity alike; and its duration is eternal.
It is utter stillness.
Such, then, is the form and shape of our original mind,
which is also our original body.
Hui Hai 720 – 814
photo alvesgaspar
A beautiful idea, similar to the Eastern understanding of natural goodness, or original mind:
Our hands full or not:
The same abundance.
Our eyes open or shut:
The same light.
Yves Jean Bonnefoy, French poet and art historian, 1923 – 2016
with, as before, thanks to david kanigan, Live and Learn blog
photo carrotmadman6
Our problems are a big deal for us.
So we need to make space for an attitude of honouring things completely and at the same time not making them a big deal. It’s a paradoxical idea, but holding these two attitudes simultaneously is the source of enormous joy: we hold a sense of respect toward all things, along with the ability to let go. In Buddhist terms, the space that opens is referred to as ‘shunyata,’ or emptiness. It’s basically just a feeling of lightness. When you begin to see life from the point of view that everything is spontaneously arising and that things aren’t ‘coming at you’ or ‘trying to attack you,’ in any given moment you will likely experience more space and more room to relax into. So shunyata refers to the fact that we actually have a seed of spaciousness, of freshness, openness, relaxation, in us.
Pema Chodron
photo Manfred Werner
We use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way…
David Whyte,
Nothing you ever understand
will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.
Very mixed weather in Ireland this week, snow on Wednesday followed by warm sunshine on Friday. Our experience too can be mixed, with encouraging moments at times and moments when discouragement reigns
But patiently, underneath it all, something emerges and we learn to let go…
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Philip Larkin
Mindfulbalance 