Happiness lies not in finding what is missing,
but in finding what is present
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance
Tag: Awareness
Allowing things to be….
You have to trust this simple ability that we all have to be fully present and fully awake, and begin to recognize the grasping and the ideas we have taken on about ourselves, about the world around us, about our thoughts and perceptions and feelings. The way of mindfulness is the way of recognizing conditions just as they are. We simply recognize and acknowledge their presence, without blaming them or judging them or criticizing them or praising them. We allow them to be, the positive and the negative both.
Ajahn Sumedho.
Resting in the knowing
Through mindfulness practice you begin to experience how conditioned the world is and how these conditions constantly change. To free ourselves we need to quiet the mind through some mindfulness in meditation. Them, instead of identifying with the changing conditions, we learn to release them and turn toward consciousness itself, to rest in the knowing. Ajahn Chah called this pure awareness resting in “the One Who Knows”….The senses and the world are always changing conditions, but that which knows is unconditioned. With practice we discover the selflessness of experience; we shift identity. We can be in the midst of an experience, being upset or angry or caught by some problem, and then step back from it and rest in pure awareness.
Jack Kornfield, Bringing Home the Dharma
Each moment is sacred
There is no less holiness at this time — as you are reading this — than there was the day the Red Sea parted . . . There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha’s bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said ‘Maid, arise’ to the centurion’s daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree.
Anne DIlliard, For the Time Being
…and taking the first step.
Start with the ground you know,
the pale ground beneath your feet,
your own way of starting
the conversation.
Start with your own question,
give up on other people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something simple.
To find another’s voice,
follow your own voice,
wait until that voice
becomes a private ear
listening to another.
Start right now, take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in, don’t mistake
that other
for your own.
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first thing
close in, the step
you don’t want to take.
David Whyte, Start Close in
Sunday Quote: Letting go of our stories…
![[Penguin]](https://i0.wp.com/www.ngsprints.co.uk/images/M/1006843.jpg "[Penguin]")
When we become fixed in our perceptions,
we lose our ability to fly
Yongey Mingpur Rinpoche
