Tag: Awareness

Use breathing to ground yourself in stormy weather

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Our breathing is a stable solid ground that we can take refuge in. Regardless of our internal weather – our thoughts, emotions and perceptions- our breathing is always with us like a faithful friend. Whenever we feel carried away, or sunken in a deep emotion, or scattered in worries and projects, we return to our breathing to collect and anchor our mind.

We feel the flow of air coming in and going out of our nose. We feel how light and natural, how calm and peaceful our breathing functions. At any time, we can return to this peaceful source of life.

We may like to recite: “Breathing in I know that I am breathing in.
Breathing out I know that I am breathing out.”

We do not need to control our breath. Feel the breath as it actually is. It may be long or short, deep or shallow. Conscious breathing is the key to uniting body and mind and bringing the energy of mindfulness into everyday life.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Hard to believe

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All truth is a paradox.

Grief,  friends, time and tears will heal you.

Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk. The first thing God says to Moses is, “Take off your shoes.”

We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know.

Anne Lamott, 12 Truths I Learnt from Life and Writing

Sunday Quote: We think we know

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Every time you make sense out of reality,

you bump into something that destroys the sense you made.
 

Anthony de Mello, s.j.

A drop of water

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Our everyday world may have gotten more restricted; This does not necessarily mean less rich.

A drop of water has the tastes of the water of the seven seas: there is no need to experience all the ways of worldly life.

The reflections of the moon on one thousand rivers are from the same moon:

The mind must be full of light.

Hong Zicheng, Chinese Philosopher, 1572-1620

Walking in light

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A poem for this Easter Monday, traditionally in Italy “Lunedì dell’Angelo”, (Monday of the Angel), a day for going for a walk,  remembering the road to Emmaus story in the New Testament

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry,

for I know that you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know

there is no answer
but loving one another,
even our enemies, and this is hard.

But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he gives a light, divine

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you will have the courage for love,
you may walk in light.

Wendell Berry, Now you Know the Worst

Sunday Quote: New worlds

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When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.

Tuli Kupferberg, 1923 – 2010, American counterculture poet and author.