Misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening.
Human beings are made of water.
we were not designed
to hold ourselves
together,
rather run freely
like oceans,
like rivers.
Beau Taplin, Run Freely
The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering,
it doesn’t mean that something is wrong.
What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth.
Suffering is part of life,
and we don’t have to feel it’s happening because we personally made the wrong move.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Hard Times
Very windy these days, as first the tail end of the tropical storm passed over the country, and this morning Storm Ali shakes things up.
The first of the leaves start to fall.
The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” “Own-being” means separate, independent existence… everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity.
Lewis Redmond, Emptiness: The Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism
Everyone wants you to be Atlas,
to shoulder it all. Even the voice in your
head insists you are behind. But I’ve seen
the light in you, the one the gods finger
while we sleep. I’ve seen the blossom open
in your heart, no matter what remains to
be done. There are never enough hours
to satisfy the minions of want. So close
your eyes and lean into the Oneness that
asks nothing of you…. You have never been more
complete than in this incomplete moment.
Mark Nepo, The Myth of Urgency
To dare is to lose one’s footing temporarily;
to not dare, is to lose one’s life
Søren Kierkegaard
