Flowers fall even if we love them,
and weeds grow even if we hate them,
and that is all.
Dogen
Sunday Quote: Accepting the ups and downs of life
Tag: Acceptance
All shall be well
I was recently reminded that this was my favourite phrase for many years. It comes from the 14th Century Christian Anchoress Julian of Norwich. It reflects the same wisdom in the face of impermanence as the previous Taoist quote and Sylvia Boorstein’s words yesterday. It helps us to look deeper even when the mind gets confused and life seems difficult.
All shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well
Julian of Norwich
The 10,000 things rise and fall…
The “10, 000 things” is a shorthand way of talking about all the experiences – good and bad – which arise and pass away in our lifetime. It stands for all of reality, which contains the right mix of experiences for our growth, and with its ebbs and flows is continually rearranging itself.The ten thousand things arise together; In their arising is their return.
Now they flower, and flowering sink homeward, returning to the root.
The return to the root is peace.
Peace: to accept what must be, and to know what endures.
In that knowledge is wisdom.
Lao Tzu
Accepting what we are
Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.
Like human fish,
we are asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.
There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.
Mark Nepo, Accepting this
When weakness becomes a place of joy
Today we had a beautiful early Spring morning, and it was a lovely background for the second session of the MBSR Programme where the majority of participants are volunteers for the new Hospice soon to open in Geneva. I was reflecting on the type of presence we have with others, and how to create a space to tune into them, especially when they are weak. And later one I was reflecting in my own life how the fundamental lesson is learning to accept our own weakness and what a freedom it is when we see that we are accepted and loved. Sadly, we often pick up the opposite message when we are little, that our worth comes from our competence and what we can do for others. It is great to let go of that and realize that we are accepted even when we are at our worst, when we make mistakes, even when we let others down. That is the greatest joy, a letting go and an end to striving.
Our lives are a mystery of growth from weakness to weakness, from the weakness of the little baby to the weakness of the aged. Throughout our lives we are prone to fatigue, sickness and accidents. Weakness is at the heart of each one of us. Weakness becomes a place of chaos and confusion, if in our weakness we are not wanted; it becomes a place of peace and joy, if we are accepted, listened to, appreciated and loved.
If we deny our weakness and the reality of death, if we want to be powerful and strong always, we deny part of our being, we live an illusion.
Jean Vanier Becoming Human
Hiding our true selves
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint…They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems.
Thomas Merton
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