Sunday quote: No longer striving

For to know nothing is nothing,

not to want to know anything likewise,

but to be beyond knowing anything,

to know you are beyond knowing anything,

that is when peace enters in.

Samuel Beckett, Molloy

The river of life

In the web of life, you see the tentativeness of physical incarnation in this world. You come to realize the essential, ephemeral, and ungraspable experience. The river of life and its impermanence makes us see vastness. No moment can ever be repeated, and every moment is always new and then quickly replaced. We find our composure when we realize the ‘everlasting truth of everything changes.’  Life is precious and beautiful and unfathomable

Jack Kornfield.

Reframing

You cannot rely on anything. Things change. OK, so this is where your choices begin. We can’t escape life’s essential problems, but we can change our understanding about them. We can practice reframing, generosity, and gratitude. The evanescence of things is the real reason you enjoy your life

Lewis Richmond, Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser

Rest in being

To nourish the soul is to rest in being. Our greatest unhappiness comes from our longing. Our greatest peace comes from our being. But we stay rooted in the easy and convenient. We eliminate as much pain as we can from our lives and end up painted into a corner we call safety. Safety keeps you numb and dead. People are caught by surprise when it is time to die. They have allowed themselves to live so little.

Stephen Levine

A healing root

We all share a common story, with moments of weakness, wrong turns or unwanted places in our lives. However, if we see them wisely, they can become a fertile seedbed, bringing forth growth into the fullness of our lives.

Pay close attention to your mean thoughts.
That sourness may be a blessing,
as an overcast day brings rain for the roses
and relief to dry soil.
Don’t look so sourly on your sourness!
It may be it’s carrying what you most deeply need
and want. What seems to be keeping you from joy
may be what leads you to joy.
Don’t call it a dead branch.
Call it the live, moist root.
Don’t always be waiting to see
what’s behind it. That wait and see
poisons your Spirit.
Reach for it.
Hold your meanness to your chest
as a healing root,
and be through with waiting.

Rumi

Sunday Quote: Approach to life

To play a wrong note is insignificant;

to play without passion is inexcusable.

Beethoven