No matter how dire the circumstances, we can have confidence in life’s flow and in our own deep seated goodness.
No matter how dark,
the hand always knows the way to the mouth.
Saying of the Idoma ethnic group, Nigeria.
no matter how dark
Tag: balance
Come and Go
Shifting the nervous system from fusion to observation.
Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‘yours,’ not personal.
They are conditions of the human mind.
They come and go.
Nothing that comes and goes is you.
Eckhart Tolle
Wounds
In Japan, there is an art to fixing broken pottery called kintsugi. The cracks are mended with a resin painted gold. The idea is that what is broken becomes more beautiful for having been broken.
In this way, the Japanese honor the broken rather than hiding it.
So often, we hide our wounds, our scars, our cracks. But what if they are the very openings through which we grow?
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
To be
Try to be, only to be. The all-important word is ‘try’. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions. Don’t ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed.
What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of success
Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT.
somewhere else
The unsatisfactory nature of life does not mean we are getting it wrong. Our experience is characterized by a constant restless quality :
At its core, dukkha is the tension of resisting life as it is.
Psychologically, it manifests as anxiety, self-judgment, and the relentless pursuit of ‘somewhere else’ to be happy.
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance
Attention
As Mary Oliver reminded us yesterday, paying attention is how one stands rightly in this world.
Attention is the most basic form of love. To pay attention to your breath, to the bird outside, to the ache in your heart -this is how you honor the sacredness of life.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape
Attention is a narrowing and an expansion. You focus on one leaf, and in that act, the whole forest becomes more alive.
To see a single thing clearly is to see its connection to everything else.
Jane Hirshfield, Poetry and the Mind of Concentration
Mindfulbalance 