We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything we are wasting our time.
But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be.
‘To be what’? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving.
And that is what the world needs most
Thich Nhat Hanh
Enjoying life is not difficult in the exciting moments. However, the key is the ordinary moments….
I like to sit on a verandah overlooking the valley, counting the Pleiades coming up in the cold air, the Crow, the Big Bear turning around the pole as the night goes on.
And that’s what meditation is like really, doing nothing, looking at nothing in particular, relishing the plainness, the life in between.
John Tarrant, Bring me the Rhinoceros
In the course of [my] travels it became clear to me that tranquility and peace have nothing to do with the most beautiful places on earth or the most interesting experiences.
They are only to be found in one’s heart.
Ayya Khema, I Give you my life: The Autobiography of a Buddhist Nun
It’s impossible to be still and quiet all the time. As a whale or dolphin must break surface, only to dive back down, only to break surface again, each of us must break surface into the noise of the world, only to rest our way back into the depth of stillness, where we can know ourselves and life more deeply, until we have to break surface again. No one is ever done with this crossover between noise and stillness…..For the noise of the mind never dies. It can only be put in perspective, quieted until we can hear the more ancient voices that give us life.
Mark Nepo, Stopping the Noise
When we meditate,
we are training the mind to stop feeding a pain pattern
Ruth King, Meditation teacher, Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible
Ordinariness is a simple presence in this moment that allows the mystery of life to show itself. When Thoreau warns us to “beware of any activity that requires the purchase of new clothes” he reminds us that simplicity is the way we open to everyday wonder.
Ordinariness is interested in what is here and now….the ordinary mystery of breathing or of walking, the mystery of trees on our streets or of loving someone near to us. It is not based on attaining mystical states or extraordinary powers. It does not seek to become something special, but is emptying, listening.
Jack Kornfield, Bringing home the Dharma
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