Tag: balance

Coming home to your own truth

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You have to start seeing yourself as your truthful friends see you.

As long as you remain blind to your own truth, you keep putting yourself down and referring to everyone else as better, holier, and more loved than you are. You look up to everyone in whom you see goodness, beauty, and love because you do not see any of these qualities in yourself. As a result, you begin leaning on others without realizing that you have everything you need to stand on your own feet.

Henri Nouwen, Inner Voice of Love

Our choices

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In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control.

Where will I find good and bad?

In me, in my choices.

Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher, 55 – 135

Letting go of the desire to control

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We can feel the possibility of balance in our lives,

when we recognize that life is not in our control

Jack Kornfield

Kindness towards oneself

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Sylvia Boorstein’s wise way of working with her heart when she’s worrying or anxious

“Sweetheart, you are in pain. Relax. Take a breath.

Let’s pay attention to what is happening.

Then we’ll figure out what to do”

The sun always rises

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The sun shines day after day without fail, yet if clouds appear to make the sky overcast, it can’t be seen. It still comes up in the east every morning and goes down in the west. The only difference is that you can’t see it because it’s hidden behind the clouds. The sun is your original mind, the clouds are your illusions. You are unaware of this mind because it’s covered by illusions and can’t be seen. But you never lose it,  not even when you go to sleep.

The unborn mind that your mothers have given you is thus always there, wonderfully clear and bright and illuminating.

Bankei Yōtaku (1622-1693), Rinzai Zen master, 

who emphasized our original nature or inner aliveness,  which he terms the Unborn 

Wide enough

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The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises.

Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.

Pema Chodron