Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained
by cultivating friendliness toward the happy,
compassion for the unhappy,
delight in the virtuous,
and indifference toward the wicked.
Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
What makes a calm mind
Tag: balance
Sunday quote: Open to all
Experience life in all possible ways – good, bad, bitter-sweet, dark, light, summer, winter. Experience all the dualities. Don’t be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become.
Osho
A whisper
Some wisdom for our first full week of work, with its pressures and pulls
The pressure and pull of a noisy day denies us the comfort of God. It is a day in which we are buffeted by the world around us and left at the mercy of the clatter and jangle of our own hearts. To be a contemplative we must put down the cacophony of the world around us and go inside ourselves to wait for the God who is a whisper not a storm.
Joan Chittister, One House
Listen and Question
We tend to bestow our judging mind with unquestioned power and authority, but this risks an inaccurate self-perception. Instead, listen and question, without believing every word. Take back your right to evaluate the credibility of judgments and your own self-worth. By clarifying your relationship to the judging mind, you can reclaim your power to establish a more accurate self-perception and stable sense of well-being.
Mark Coleman, From Suffering to Peace: The True Promise of Mindfulness
Starting over
Thoughts evoke emotions, tensions, excitement and stress, and can bring on exhaustion and sickness. Awareness reveals this simply to be so. Awareness is freedom from wanting to improve oneself or to put oneself down. It … opens one up to whatever else is happening this instant: breathing, a bird singing, a motor humming, the wind blowing, thoughts moving, the body tensing and relaxing…
Toni Packer
What holds you back
A monk asked Shito “How does one become free?”. Shito replied, “Who has bound you?”
That’s the question, who binds you? Don’t look outside, look into the mind, investigate the opinionated mind. Become familiar with its opinions and judgments; then you wont be so vulnerable to them. Our effort is to release the mind from its ordinary opinions and see revealed a new universe. Nothing binds us but the habituated mind.
Katherine Thanas, The Truth of This Life
Mindfulbalance 