As a human being, you have the right to get angry; but as a practitioner, you do not have the right to stop practicing.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Everything is practice
Tag: balance
The changing nature of everything
Above all, the attitude of Buddhist meditation is one that keeps remembering and focusing on the changing nature of everything. When we witness, listen and relate to sensory experience as change, its power to burn, hold and trap us wanes. There is a sense of dispassion, not through rejection or some other kind of negative attitude to the sensory experience, but just through observing it, bringing the mind fully on to it – as fully as we can. Then the heart grows quiet and still.
Ajahn Sucitto
Brokenness
One does not have to be completely satisfied with everything before one can be content. Similarly, everything does not have to be just as you would like it in your life for you to be grateful.
The wilderness constantly reminds me that wholeness is not about perfection….I have been astonished to see how nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds. Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness – mine, yours, ours – need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.
Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
Sunday Quote: Words and silence
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
An ongoing work
When we get our spiritual house in order, we’ll be dead. This goes on. You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty
Flannery O’Connor, 1925 – 1964. American novelist, Letter to Louise Abbott
Reality passing by
We usually do not look into what is really there in front of us. We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we mistake those mental objects for reality. We get so caught up in this endless thought-stream that reality flows by unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in an eternal flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears. We are endlessly seeking security. Meanwhile, the world of real experience flows by untouched and untasted.
Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness In Plain English
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