Just know what is happening in your mind: not happy or sad about it, not attached.
If you suffer – see it, know it, and be empty.
It’s like a letter – you have to open it before you can know what’s in it.
Ajahn Chah
Tag: Awareness
What we are looking for
All that we are looking for in life — all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind — is right here in the present moment. Our very own awareness is itself fundamentally pure and good. The only problem is that we get so caught up in the ups and downs of life that we don’t take the time to pause and notice what we already have…Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, pause from time to time and relax your mind. You don’t have to change anything about your experience. You can let thoughts and feelings come and go freely, and leave your senses wide open. Make friends with your experience and see if you can notice the spacious awareness that is with you all the time. Everything you ever wanted is right here in this present moment of awareness.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Letter to students before starting three year wandering retreat.
Making space to see….
In silence, we learn to make distinctions. Those who fly silence, fly also from distinctions. [The person]….who loves …silence ..fears the noise that takes the sharp edge off every experience of reality. He avoids the unending movement that blurs all beings together into a crowd of undistinguishable things.
Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
Give this gift today
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Simone Weil.
Not buying into it
To acknowledge that suffering has an origin is already an abandonment of sorts. It means rather than thiniking, “I am a victim of a frustrating world that refuses to conform to my wishes”, we acknowledge that suffering is an inevitable part of life and it is something we take into ourselves by the way we react to circumstances.
Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth
Entry points
If the intention is to bring awareness to the direct experience of the present moment, with fresh eyes, then life itself becomes the practice. What’s so powerful about understanding that wherever you are that is the entry point is that it frees us of this false belief that we need to be in a certain head space to train our minds toward mindfulness. In the moments you are doubting, agitated, restless or bored, these are the entry points to the present moment…no matter what is happening in your life at any given moment, that is what you can practice being mindful with.
Elisha Goldstein, A Key Mindful Lesson for us all
