Tag: Acceptance

The key to contentment

Karl Duffy2 Comments

part whole

One who is content with what he has and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in life is far better off than the one who has much more but who worries about all he might be missing. For we can not make the best of what we are if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not. We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Let us therefore learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing.

Thomas Merton.

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Holding Hands with Elderly Patient

We are all substantially flawed, wounded, angry, hurt, here on Earth. But this human condition, so painful to us, and in some ways shameful – because we feel we are weak when the reality of ourselves is exposed – is made much more bearable when it is shared, face to face, in words that have expressive human eyes behind them.

Alice Walker, Letter to President Clinton

Not demanding something different

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The previous post suggests letting go as a way of negotiating the ups and downs of each day, and I got an early opportunity to practice this strategy this morning. I arose early and set out to get to College in good time. However a major accident closed the main road towards Dublin and led to diversions, traffic chaos, and added significant time to a normally carefree journey. So the planned early start at the desk did not materialize. It is good to work at being at peace with how each day starts and develops, how our life is actually unfolding in this moment,  as this leads to being at peace with how our lives are in an overall sense.

Pleasant conditions change into unpleasant ones, and unpleasant conditions eventually become pleasant. We should just keep this awareness of impermanence and be at peace with the way things are, not demanding that they be otherwise. The people we live with, the places we live in, the society we are a part of – we should just be at peace with everything. But most of all we should be at peace with ourselves – that is the big lesson to learn in life. It is really hard to be at peace with oneself. I find that most people have a lot of self-aversion. It is much better to be at peace with our own bodies and minds than anything else, and not demand that they be perfect, that we be perfect, or that everything be good. We can be at peace with the good and the bad.

Ajahn Sumedho

Being rather than doing

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baby steps

When people … put on masks, they hide their center from others and from themselves. They hide their source from themselves and from others. They hide their cry from others because somewhere they are inserted in society and they have their place and they are recognized in their power. So they wear a mask because they have a position to defend. Often their function is their mask. But when you are dying, you have no mask. It is a pity that we have to wait until our last breath to accept who we are!

Jean Vanier, Founder of the L’Arche Communities. 

Open to all directions today

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Happiness arrives from many directions. If you have a notion that it comes only from one direction, you will miss all of these other opportunities because you want happiness to come only from the direction you want. Please remember that your notions of happiness may be very dangerous. Go back and examine deeply your notions and ideas of happiness. So let go of what you believed yesterday. Let go of what you thought last week you needed to be happy. The conditions of happiness that are in your life now are enough.

Thich Nhat Hahn

How we learn to be

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bridge4444

You may wonder what the best approach is to helping society and how you can know that what you are doing is authentic and good. The only answer is nowness. The way to relax, or rest the mind in nowness, is through the practice of meditation. In meditation you take an unbiased approach. You let things be as they are, without judgment, and in that way you yourself learn to be.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shambala