Think of a problem that has plagued you for a long time — your weight, a loved one’s bad habits, fear of terrorism, whatever. No doubt you’ve tried valiantly to control this issue, but are your efforts working? The answer has to be no; otherwise you would have solved the problem long ago. What if your real trouble isn’t the issue you brood about so compulsively, but the brooding itself.
Martha Beck, Victory by Surrender, Creating your right life
The person who makes all cares into one care
– the care for simply staying present –
will be cared for by that presence which is creative love
Kabir Helminski
Not an image that I had heard before, but the ideas behind it are quite useful:
The practice of “remaining like a log ” is based on refraining, not repressing. When you realize you’re thinking, just acknowledge that. Then turn your attention to your breath flowing in and out, to your body, to the immediacy of your experience. Doing this allows you to be present and alert, and thoughts have a chance to calm down.
With this practice, it can be helpful to gently breathe in and out with the restlessness of the energy. This is a major support for learning to stay present. Basic wakefulness is right here, if we can just relax. Our situation is fundamentally fluid, unbiased, and free, and we can tune into this at any time. When we practice “remaining like a log, ” we allow for this opportunity.
Pema Chodron, No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva
Human life itself, the mystery of being thrust into the world by birth and swept out of it by death, is an imponderable puzzle, one that we can try to ignore but cannot escape. So much of what passes for ‘ordinary’ life is, when seen through different eyes, not ordinary at all, but full of potential for spiritual learning. To practice the koan of everyday life means to confront every situation as though it were a profound spiritual question.
Lewis Richmond: Work as a Spiritual Practice. A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction on the Job.
Sanctuary is wherever I find safe space to regain my bearings, reclaim my soul, heal my wounds, and return to the world as a wounded healer. It’s not merely about finding shelter from the storm: it’s about spiritual survival. Today, seeking sanctuary is no more optional for me than church attendance was as a child.
Sometimes I find it in churches, monasteries, and other sites designated as sacred.
But more often I find it in places sacred to my soul: in the natural world, in the company of a trustworthy friend, in solitary or shared silence, in the ambience of a good poem or good music.
Parker Palmer, Seeking Sanctuary in our own Sacred Places
What is astonishing about our contemporary world is how few people are present to what is physically occurring around them. Distracted thumbs on phone keys are a brilliant, iconic image Shakespeare would use today, were he alive, to illustrate the desperate need to be busy and remain undisturbed by a larger horizon of human endeavor for which we might feel inadequate. There is an unconscious sense that if we refuse to be present to the physical world around us, we will be held harmless from any of the greater physical patterns that might disturb and destroy the protected, often virtual worlds we have taken so much effort to construct around us.
David Whyte
Mindfulbalance 