For some unfortunate reason,
complaining, rejecting or fearing something strengthens your sense of ego and makes you feel important.
You contract back into your small and false self
and from there, unfortunately, it becomes harder and harder to reemerge
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now
We depend on change in order to live, so acquaint yourself with the fact that it’s all inconstant
Pleasure isn’t for sure; pain isn’t for sure; happiness isn’t for sure; stillness isn’t for sure; distraction isn’t for sure.
Whatever arises, you should tell it: Don’t try to fool me. You’re not for sure
Ajahn Chah
The way to live in the present
is to understand that it is all that we have
Joseph Goldstein
The mind is naturally spacious.
It can hold anything – joy, sorrow, fear, excitement—without being destroyed or overwhelmed. The trouble begins when we forget this capacity and start to believe that our thoughts and emotions are solid, permanent, or bigger than the mind itself. We contract around them, tightening our mental grip, as if holding on could somehow make life more secure. But the truth is, the mind is like the sky—vast, open, and inherently calm. Clouds (thoughts, worries, pleasures) pass through, but the sky remains unchanged.
Meditation is the practice of remembering this.…This spaciousness isn’t something we need to create; it’s already here. Our practice is to recognize it. When we do, life becomes lighter. Difficult emotions don’t disappear, but they no longer define us.
Sylvia Boorstein, It’s Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness
The greatest obstacle to living fully is expectancy,
which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.
You are arranging what lies in the control of fortune and abandoning what lies in yours.
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius Letter CI
One evening, I sat on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, watching the waves roll in. Each one rose, peaked, and dissolved back into the sea—countless waves, never the same, yet always the ocean. It struck me then: this is how life is. Our bodies, our thoughts, the world itself – all are like those waves, rising and passing in endless flux.
We often live as if we’re solid, permanent beings navigating a stable world. But the truth is closer to that ocean: a flow of changing conditions, with no fixed ‘self’ at the center.
The heart that understands impermanence becomes like the sky: things pass through it – joy, sorrow, gain, loss -but the sky isn’t harmed. This is the freedom the Buddha promised
Ajahn Amaro, Small Boat, Great Mountain
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