If we are not mindful, it’s not tea we are drinking, but our own afflictions and illusions
If the tea becomes real, we become real.
When we are able to truly meet the tea, at that very moment we are truly alive
Thich Nhat Hanh
Meet the tea
The real journey is here
Don’t go off sightseeing.
The real journey is right here.
The great excursion starts
from exactly where you are.
Don’t look for the remedy of your troubles
outside yourself.
You are the medicine.
You are the cure for your own sorrow.
Rumi, The Journey Starts here
Show up
I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do
was to show up for my life
and not be ashamed.
Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year
Enjoy this day
We spend so much of our lives inhabiting a fictitious future or nostalgically indulging in memories and reminiscences that we fail to notice this extraordinary thing that is happening to us right now. It has taken four billion years of evolution to generate this kind of organism with this kind of brain, and yet we wake up in the morning and feel bored.
Stephen Bachelor, in an interview with Wes Nisker, Inquiring Mind
How to keep our calm
Wonder exists in experiencing whatever manifests before you,
and practice must go beyond the present time.
Adapt to conditions and merge with awakening,
then you will not be obstructed by the many tiny motes of dust.
Hongzhi, 1091-1157, Chan Master
Sunday quote: things are complete
Nothing we see or hear is perfect
But right there in the imperfection
is perfect reality
Shunryu Suzuki roshi
Mindfulbalance 