If you’re determined to think of yourself as limited, fearful, vulnerable, or scarred by past experience,
know only that you have chosen to do so,
and that the opportunity to experience yourself differently is always available
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living
Awareness is not the same as thought.
It lies beyond thinking, although it makes no use of thinking, honoring its value and its power.
Awareness is more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see and know our thought as thought rather than getting caught up in them as reality.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Wherever You go, There you are
photo Wagner Machado Carlos Lemes
In the midst of this vast, unfathomable, ever-changing, dying, and renewing flow of life, the human brain ceaselessly engages in trying to fix for itself a state of permanency and certainty. Having the capacity to think and form pictures of ourselves, to remember them and become deeply attached to them, we take this world of pictures and ideas for real. We thoroughly believe in the reality of the picture story of our personal life. We are totally identified with it and want it to go on forever. The idea of “forever” is itself an invention of the human brain. Forever is a dream.
Toni Packer, The Work of this Moment
photo helgi halldorsson
We think that accomplishing things will complete us,
when it is experiencing life that will.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Photo from the beautiful site http://www.judesphotography.wordpress.com
Your life is your practice. Your spiritual practice does not occur someplace other than in your life right now, and your life is nowhere other than where you are. You are looking for answers, insight, and wisdom that you already possess. Live the life in front of you, be the life you are, and see what you find out for yourself.
Karen Maezen Millar, Momma Zen, Walking the Crooked path of Motherhood
photo of pedestrian bridge over the Drac near near the Lac De Monteynard-Avignonet, France, by herby
