What matters in life is not what happens to you,
but what you remember and how you remember it
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Not what happens today
Tag: Awareness
Believe
Every man has his own courage,
and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The nature of reality
Beannachtaí Lá Fhéile Phádraig daoibh go léir!
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.
The clouds above us come together and disperse;
The breeze in the yard departs and returns.
Life is like that, so why not relax?
Who can keep us from celebrating?
Lu Yu, Chinese tea master, 733 – 804
Everything is practice
As a human being, you have the right to get angry; but as a practitioner, you do not have the right to stop practicing.
Thich Nhat Hanh
The changing nature of everything
Above all, the attitude of Buddhist meditation is one that keeps remembering and focusing on the changing nature of everything. When we witness, listen and relate to sensory experience as change, its power to burn, hold and trap us wanes. There is a sense of dispassion, not through rejection or some other kind of negative attitude to the sensory experience, but just through observing it, bringing the mind fully on to it – as fully as we can. Then the heart grows quiet and still.
Ajahn Sucitto
An ongoing work
When we get our spiritual house in order, we’ll be dead. This goes on. You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty
Flannery O’Connor, 1925 – 1964. American novelist, Letter to Louise Abbott
