To feel open-minded and open-hearted is beautiful;
to be free from the burden of anxiety, mistrust and planning the future; to be simply present.
In that willingness to be here with no preoccupations, defence or alternatives,
we can rest in a world which suddenly, surprisingly, feels like home.
Ajahn Sucitto, Original Openness
photo of the Wicklow mountains by kain
One of the most satisfying feelings I know – and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person – comes from my appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. People are just wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it. When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.” I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.
Carl Rogers
By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly.
For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself,
“There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner
Patience and letting time stretch out achieve more than forcing and passion
(Patience et longueur de temps font plus que force ni que rage)
Jean de La Fontaine, Le Lion et le Rat
A man sees in the world
what he carries in his heart.
Goethe, Faust
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
photo zuliannyGM
You are whole and also part of larger and larger circles of wholeness
you many not even know about.
You are never alone.
And you already belong.
You belong to humanity. You belong to life.
You belong to this moment, this breath.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
photo g. dallorto
