May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Rainer Maria Rilke, I believe in all that has never yet been spoken
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

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