If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view.
If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.
Norman Fischer, Beyond Language
Sunday Quote: free
Tag: balance
Good and bad habits
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route and make a beaten path for ourselves.
I had not lived there a week, before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct.
The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Beyond likes and dislikes
The person who has gone beyond likes and dislikes, Sri Ramakrishna will say, is like an autumn leaf floating in the wind.
It floats gently here when the wind flows here, it goes there when the wind blows there, and slowly it settles to the ground.
Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living
A fixed gaze
Rinzai Gigen, the founder of the Rinzai school of Buddhism, said: “Be master wherever you go – then wherever you are, things are as they truly are.”
This means that no matter the circumstances, if you try your best to do what you’re capable of in the here and now, you will realize your potential protagonist, or who you’re meant to be. A protagonist is not misled by information run rampant, does not allow their focus to be drawn this way and that. Their gaze is fixed steadily in one direction. A protagonist stands firmly on the ground, carving a path of their resoluteness. You could even say they are leading their life with certainty.
We are all capable of becoming our own protagonists, anytime and anywhere. But first, we must focus our efforts. Concentrate on the here and now.
Why not begin there?
Shunmyo Masuno, Don’t Worry
Sunday Quote: the root cause
I think we’re miserable partly because we have only one god, and that’s economics.
James Hillman, 1926 – 2011, American Jungian psychologist
Recognize what you have
Focus on the positive things you have, rather than the size of the task ahead of you.
Jesus said to his disciples, “How many loaves have you? Mark 6:38
Why worry about the loaves and fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love and the felt ferocity of that love and the felt necessity of that love, the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking, and don’t worry about what is reality, or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy. Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word spoken with love.
Mary Oliver, Logos
Mindfulbalance 