We often ask, “What’s wrong?”
Doing so we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We feel suffering, anger and depression and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us.
We should learn to ask “What is not wrong?” and be in touch with that.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
When you are compassionate with yourself,
you trust in your soul,
which you let guide your life.
Your soul knows the geography of your destiny
better than you do.
John O’Donohue
The only freedom is the freedom from the known
J Krisnamurti
photo carl magnus-helgegren
The center that I cannot find
is known to my unconscious mind.
W.H. Auden
Consciousness works by making maps, and there is always a gap between our maps and the territory of our lives. A surprise is a landscape feature that was not on my map. Surprises are common and an indication you are alive. Our representations are fragile and based on poor data. The mind assigns value to events, saying, “This is good” and “This is bad,” but the values we give things are usually just arm-waving and scrambling about. The world is truly unpredictable in its consequences and our reactions to events are also unpredictable, even if we have a deep meditation practice.
We can make an ally of surprise. Meditation methods are not intended to make the world predictable, but they provide a space in which we can have our reactions without fighting with ourselves. And in the end, meditation resets the maps and opinions to zero. When we meditate, there is nothing else in the world, and whatever we have is enough.
John Tarrant, 7 Ways to Make the Most of Life’s Surprises.
Don’t go back over what has passed
Nor yearn for what is yet to be
What has passed has been abandoned
And the future is not yet here
The state of arising here and now
see it as it is, with insight
The Buddha, Majjhima Nikaya, 131
photo “mike” Michael L Baird
Mindfulbalance 