If we take eternity to mean not an infinite temporal duration,
but timelessness,
then eternal life is theirs who live in the present
Wittgenstein
Tag: Awareness
Bring a steady attention to all
The foundation practice for mindfulness is the development of a steady concentration which is able to then hold all things in awareness, both pleasant and unpleasant, without necessarily identifying with them:
The practice of concentration (samadhi) trains the mind’s capacity for being present in the moment,
thus augmenting our ability to bring wise attention to bear as much as possible on the experience.
Andrew Olendzki.
Another sunny morning in Geneva
Another beautiful day of sunshine dawns. We have been so blessed these past weeks. LIfe starts over again with new possibilities, new experiences, and is lavish in its possibilities. This day is exactly as it should be; are we open to receive it, or too preoccupied with other concerns?
Have you ever seen
anything in your life more wonderful
than the way the sun, every evening,
relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone—
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning, on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough for the pleasure
that fills you, as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too turned from this world—
or have you too gone crazy for power, for things?
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning, on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough for the pleasure
that fills you, as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too turned from this world—
or have you too gone crazy for power, for things?
Mary Oliver, The Sun
Ending confusion: How to find the meaning in life
Separated by centuries and traditions, but the same message:
The meaning of life is to see
Hui Neng ( Chinese Zen monk, 7th century).
The whole of life lies in the verb “seeing”
Teilhard de Chardin, (Jesuit priest, 20th Century).
Devotion proceeds through various stages of unmasking until we reach the point of seeing the world directly and simply without imposing our fabrications.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
A mind like a child’s
The quality of mind we are talking about……. is a mind which responds to something with attention and then returns to its own natural state. It doesn’t elaborate on it, doesn’t get caught up in it, doesn’t get excited about it. It just notes that this is what is happening. Every time it happens, it notes it. It doesn’t get blasé. It doesn’t become conditioned. In this way, it is like a child’s mind. When something interesting happens, it will note it and then let it go and move onto the next thing. This is what is meant by a childlike mind. It sees everything as if for the first time. It doesn’t have this whole backlog of preconditioned ideas about things. You see a glass and you see it as it is, rather than seeing all the other glasses you have seen in your life, together with your ideas and theories about glasses and whether you like glasses in this or that shape, or the kind of glass you drank out of yesterday. We are talking about a mind which sees the thing freshly in the moment. That’s the quality we are aiming for. We lose this as we become adults. We are trying to reproduce this fresh mind, which sees things without all this conditioning.
Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a mountain lake: teachings on practical Buddhism
Opening to the soul in ordinary life
The three days of the Easter Festival contain a number of beautiful rituals which have been celebrated by human beings for thousands of years. These rituals touch of the big themes of human life – loss and death, betrayal and loyalty, meaning and love – and do so in a way that allow us ways to share significant emotions with others. The city of Geneva was quiet this morning, as it has been the last few days. It is good to have seasons and rhythms in our lives, periods of less activity with time to celebrate with family and friends. These celebrations can become familiar rituals in our lives – they bring us together and allow us to connect, and through connection find support and meaning. They open us up to something which is beyond the rush of each day and the limitations of work:
Ritual maintains the world’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection and care. As in a dream a small object may assume a significant meaning, so in a life that is animated with ritual there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and bodies on their chairs and tools, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. When we stamp out our mass-made products with functionality blazoned on them but no sign of imagination, we are denying ritual a role in ordinary affairs. We are chasing away the soul that could animate our lives.
Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul
