Mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing
in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.
If there’s a temple, I haven’t found it yet.
Mary Oliver, What is there Beyond Knowing
photo Andy Beecroft
One of the aims of meditation practice is to develop a mind that sees, and does not get hooked into events too easily. The “Ten Thousand things” in this quote is a shorthand way of talking about all the experiences – good and bad – which arise and pass away. It stands for all of reality, which contains the right mix of experiences for our growth, and with its ebbs and flows is continually rearranging itself.
When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness
we return to the origin
and remain where we have always been.
Sosan, Third Zen Patriarch, died 606
The most heartbreaking thing is not heartbreak; it’s avoiding heartbreak. Inside the transience of life is the thusness of everything, of the tree with forty crows on it in the winter, the sound of death-metal drums from the kids in the barn, and the feeling of sadness when you lose someone. A lot of suffering is resistance to the life of feeling. If you surrender, you are surrendering to what is really going on. This is just to notice that nothing beyond your life is more important than your life.
John Tarrant, Surprises on the Way
I will always have fears,
but I need not be my fears—
for I have other places in my inner landscape
from which I can speak and act
Parker Palmer
photo of morning sun at Portmarnock, Co. Dublin
No Moment is the same as any other. Each is unique and contains unique possibilities.
Beginners mind reminds us this simple truth.
The next time you are seeing someone who is familiar to you, ask yourself if you are seeing this person with fresh eyes, as she or he really is,
or if you are seeing only the reflection of your own thoughts about this person
Jon Kabat Zinn, Full Catastrophe LIving
photo EEIM
Even though we are having very mild weather this year, there is still a sense that these early November days hold a sense of change, an understanding that we’re moving from one way of being to another. As Terri Lynn Simpson at the Washington National Cathedral Centre for Prayer and Pilgrimage wrote, they “are like open doorways that invite us to a particular kind of mindfulness where we are aware that we’re moving from one way of being to another. One foot is in the past and one foot is in the future, and in the midst of the two is the present. We can put our weight on one foot or another, superficially living in the past or the future, but true balance comes only when we live deeply in the moment”
In the deep Fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.
Mary Oliver, Song for Autumn
