Practice is just hearing, just seeing, just feeling.
This is what Christians call the face of God: simply taking in this world as it manifests.
We feel our body; we hear the cars and birds.
That’s all there is.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Tag: Awareness
Do we really go anywhere?
(Practice) ……. is not to be found in moving forwards, nor in moving backwards, nor in standing still. This, Sumedho, is your place of nonabiding.
Ajahn Chah, Letter to Ajahn Sumedho
As long as we conceive reality in terms of self and time, as a “me” who is someplace and can go some other place, then we are not realizing that going forwards, going backwards, and standing still are all entirely dependent upon the relative truths of self, locality, and time. In terms of physical reality, there is a coming and going. But think about it. Where can we truly go? Do we ever really go anywhere? Wherever we go we are always “here.”
Ajahn Amaro
Where we learn
Whatever is arising in this moment becomes the curriculum for liberating ourselves from the shackles of greed, hatred and delusion. We do not need some ideal or romantic fairy tale of what would be best for us. What we need most is what is already given to us: the actuality of things as they are in the only moment we will ever have – this one.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners.
Sunday quote: It is not always clear
You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time
and build your wings on the way down
Anne Dilliard
Things move on
“Last forever!” Who hasn’t prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.
Annie Dillard
Always starting over, each moment
If the angel deigns to come
it will be because you have convinced
her, not by tears but by your humble
resolve to be always beginning;
to be a beginner.
Rilke
