The more things go “our way” for a while, the more we can believe that that is the way it is supposed to be. And when things don’t go “our way,” which sooner or later they will not, we can get angry, disappointed, depressed, devastated……… forgetting that it was never “supposed to be” any one way at all.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Arriving at your own Door
The Shambhala teachings speak of “placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.” Another image for maitri is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away. People sometimes ask, “Who am I in this image – the mother or the chick. The answer is both….Without loving kindness for ourselves it is difficult if not impossible to genuinely feel it for others.
Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty
Or even on the wet and windy autumn morning we have here in Ireland…
What do love and hate matter when I am here alone
listening to the sound of the rain
late on this autumn evening
Dogen, 1200 – 1253
a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand.
e.e.cummings
Life is a process of becoming,
a combination of states we have to go through.
Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it.
This is a kind of death.
Anais Nin
We don’t understand
that life is heaven,
for we have only to understand that
and it will at once be fulfilled
in all its beauty,
we shall embrace each other and weep.
Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
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