Just don’t hold

When it’s dishwashing time, just wash the dishes; sitting time, just sit;
driving time, just drive; talking time, just talk. That’s all. Nothing special
. When you’re doing something, just do it.

[However,] It’s easy to say “When you’re doing something, just do it,” but this is very difficult.

Just don’t hold. Thinking is OK. Checking is OK. Only holding is a problem. Don’t hold. Feelings coming and going, OK. Don’t hold. If your mind is not holding anything, it is clear like space.

Clear like space means that sometimes clouds come, sometimes rain or lightning or an airplane comes … but the air is never broken.

Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn. 1927 – 2004

Small acts

We are here to change the world

with small acts of thoughtfulness done daily

rather than with one great breakthrough

Harold S. Kushner

we are never alone

In parts of Italy Easter Monday is called Il Giorno degli Angeli” — the Day of the Angels.

The word “angel” in Hebrew simply means “messenger.”

That definition implies anything awakening us to reality is an “angel.” Even if there are specific supernatural beings whose job is to flit between heaven and earth, they would be no less an expression of cosmic creativity than a butterfly. Such beings could teach us no more than the everyday miracles we sleepwalk past every day.

Every bird, every flower, every person who passes by us today embodies a deep and holy wisdom that might illumine our world, if we are listening.

We are never really alone. “Angels” are everywhere.

Jim Rigby, Presbyterian minister and writer

Sunday Quote: all time is eternally present

Practice resurrection.

Part of who you are is who you will be.

Wendell Barry, Manifesto

no exit

We live in a world that is not perfectible, a world that always presents you with a sense of something undone, something missing, something hurting, something irritating.

From that minor sense of discomfort to torture and poverty and murder, we live in that kind of universe. The wound that does not heal – this human predicament is a predicament that does not perfect itself. But there is the consolation of no exit, the consolation that this is what you’re stuck with.

Rather than the consolation of healing the wound, of finding the right kind of medical attention or the right kind of religion, there is a certain wisdom of no exit: this is our human predicament and the only consolation is embracing it. It is our situation, and the only consolation is the full embrace of that reality.

Leonard Cohen

Service

The greatest tragedy of our lives is not that freedom is not possible, but that we pass our years trapped in the same patterns…

We are caught in a trance of unworthiness, of not being enough, and because of that trance we turn against ourselves and others.

When we begin to trust the goodness in ourselves, we begin to relax. We begin to open.

From that openness, a natural kindness begins to emerge – an expression of our true nature

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance