Happiness is
in the quiet, ordinary things.
A table,
a chair,
a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages.
And the petal falling from the rose,
and the light flickering
as we sit silent.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Tag: balance
Just so
A similar thought to others this week. We are always gently working on the heart’s capacity to accept life as it actually is
When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept
and he said if he were God
he would have made the world just so and no different.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
What Guides us
It’s a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward.
They think they live by what they want.
But really, what guides them is what they’re afraid of.
What they don’t want.
Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
Align with the flow of life
Do non-doing;
Strive for the effortless.
Find flavor in that which has no flavor.
Deal with the small as if it were the great, deal with the few as if it were the many,
Respond to resentment with virtue.
Plan for the difficult while it is still easy;
work on the great while it is still small.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 63
Rooted
All that power from roots.
Imagine you must survive
without running
Ada Limón , Ancestors
Serenity
He knows how to enjoy the fullness of each moment, as his own mind is serene and at peace. There is a sufficiency in the things around him
At Nantai I sit quietly with an incense burning,
One day of contentment, all things are forgotten,
Not that my mind is stopped and thoughts are put away,
But that there is really nothing to disturb my serenity.
Shou-an , quoted in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism – First Series
Mindfulbalance 