Therefore, tell me:
what will engage you?
What will open the dark fields of your mind,
like a lover
at first touching?
Mary Oliver, Flare
Sunday Quote: What will engage you?
Tag: Awareness
Do not interact
One way of dealing with the inner critic, found in many different traditions, East and West:
So the holy elders,” I added, “claim that the best strategy to cope with troublesome logismoi [thoughts] is simply to ignore them.” “Precisely. Our first defense against destructive logismoi is complete indifference. This is the healthiest and most productive method to head them off right at their inception. Ignore them completely. Never open up a dialogue with these intruders. Do not interact with them either out of curiosity or out of overconfidence.”
Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: a search for Orthodox Spirituality
Nature
Feastday of Saint Francis of Assisi
The tree which moves some to tears of joy, is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all.
But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
William Blake
Find strength
You have power over your mind, not outside events.
Realize this, and you will find strength
Marcus Aurelius
a new day, a new month
Abba Poemen said of Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
Sayings of the Desert Fathers
Six words
Let go of what has passed
Let go of what may come in the future
Let go of what is happening now.
Don’t try to figure it out
Don’t try to make anything happen
Rest, let it settle itself
The Six Key Words of Advice from Tilopa, 988 – 1069, an Indian tantric master and scholar, preserved in the Buddhist Mahāmudrā/ Tibetian tradition
Mindfulbalance 