Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 – American Old Testament scholar
Don’t go all the way to heaven. Reach for apples, not the clouds. Let them fluff through the sky, skimming passage, into the past.
You are your present, your own apple. Pick it from your tree. Raise it in your hand. It’s gleaming, rich with stars. Claim it. Take a luxurious bite out of the present, and whistle along the road of your destiny.
Pablo Neruda
Do not become annoyed when faced with difficulties.
To do so merely adds difficulty to difficulty and further disturbs your mind.
By maintaining a mind of peace and non-opposition, difficulties will naturally fall away
Sheng Yen, 1931 – 2009, Taiwanese Buddhist monk,
Mindfulness, the ability to bear witness, is a tremendously powerful and skilful factor of mind. The Buddha called mindfulness the flood-stopper. It stops the floods of greed, hatred and delusion. With mindfulness we give ourselves a choice with regard to following what arises in the mind; keeping that choice available is something you want to go on doing because the mind almost longs to get trapped – and there are plenty of sights, sounds, flavours and ideas that can sweep you away, out of aware responsibility.
And, as we carry a body with us all the time, we can use that as a base for mindfulness; a place where we can stop the floods. We can turn our attention to the body and just refer to the body in the body, as it is – that is – sensations, energies and form, rather than the impressions of beauty or ugliness that information imposes on it. With these impressions the body is always the source of anxiety and agitation… The body is the home base.
Ajahn Sucitto, “What you take home with you” in Seeing the Way, An Anthology of Transcribed Talks and Essays by Monks and Nuns of the Theravada Forest Sangha Tradition
The Feast of the Transfiguration.
Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.
Dhammapada, Yamakavagga (Chapter on the Pairs)
Mindfulbalance 