Open to the life we have

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Today dawned very foggy over Ireland and England, narrowing down things and dulling the senses somewhat. Sometimes,  in similar ways,  we narrow down our possibilities by not being open to all  that is actually going on in our lives, as we think better is to be found elsewhere, or in the future:

We often disapprove of parts of our lives without really examining them – it’s like never going into certain rooms of your house. But meditation allows all the voices and all the images into the room. When we open the invisible doors, we can come to rest in the life we have; we can love it as it is instead of waiting for a shinier version. “Every day is a good day”, goes the Zen koan.

John Tarrant, Enlightenment is Something we do Together

photo aeou

and whatever you are doing

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Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free.

Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.

This is the ultimate

Zhuangzi, 4th Century BC

Its own terms

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More wind and rain passing over Ireland this afternoon. Most conversations about the weather tend to judge it in terms of “normal” and “predictable”, when in fact it keeps surprising us in its variety and extremes. We often fall into the trap of thinking that it should fall in with our plans and in doing so we risk missing the richness of what actually happens.

It’s not all that hard to get enlightened; what is difficult is to keep giving up our sense of the world so that the world can come to us on its own terms, with its vast, pitiless, loving intelligence…we return to the simplest things with an immense recognition and gratitude.

Stephen Mitchell

photo don macauley

Taking responsibility

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The capacity for growth depends on one’s ability to internalize and to take personal responsibility.

If we forever see our life as a problem caused by others,

a problem to be ‘solved,’

then no change will occur.

James Hollis, The Middle Passage

Broken Open

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There is a lot of debris around after the recent storms. Trees broken and uprooted. Most faiths tell us that in its many ways life is the main teacher, and it is by being fully present to what happens in life that we grow, not by moving away from events. This is true even if they are painful. How we do this,  each day,  is to stay open to each moment, see what it has to say to us, training in this way the heart to stay open:

A rabbi always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put the Word of God in their hearts. One of them asked “Why ‘on’ our hearts and not ‘in’ them?” The Rabbi answered “Only God can put his Word within. But reading the sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when the heart breaks open, the holy words will fall inside”

from Joan Chittister, Aspects of the Heart

photo norbert nagel

Sunday Quote: Paths

Following your path

There are no wrong turns,

only unexpected paths

Mark Nepo,