A day at the sea…
We cannot enjoy life if we spend our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.
If we’re afraid all the time, we miss out on the wonderful fact that we’re alive and can be happy right now
Thich Nhat Hahn
Incredibly warm, sunny weather here this last week. A world bathed in warmth and life and love.
Look at the sunlight.…
You see it is near, yet if you follow it ….you can’t catch it in your hands. Then you say it’s far away and yet you see it right before your eyes. Follow it and you see that it escapes you; Run away from it and it follows you close. You can neither hold onto it, nor be finished with it.
From this you come to see what is the true nature of all things
and then understand: There is no need to be sad or worry about things.
Huang Po, died 850, Zen Buddhist master
Growth and transformation occur not by changing who we are
…….but as we summon the courage to be who we are.
And that means bringing our own true, vulnerable, imperfect selves out of hiding and into the world
Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that’s all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They’re small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing.
Mary Oliver, Hum
When people ask, “Well, how shall we practice this gratefulness?” ….there is a very simple kind of methodology to it: Stop, look, go. Most of us — caught up in schedules and deadlines and rushing around, and so the first thing is that we have to stop, because otherwise we are not really coming into this present moment at all, and we can’t even appreciate the opportunity that is given to us, because we rush by, and it rushes by. So stopping is the first thing.
And then you look: What is, now, the opportunity of this given moment, only this moment, and the unique opportunity this moment gives? And that is where this beholding comes in…. And if you do that, if you try practicing that at this moment, we will already be happier people, because it has an immediate feedback of joy.
David Steindl-Rast, How to Be Grateful in Every Moment (But Not for Everything)
We are part of something greater, so we don’t have to work so hard to make things happen. Even if one part of life breaks, the ‘hidden instruments’ keep playing unimpeded:
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
….even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Rumi, Where Everything Is Music [extract]
