Mindfulness and compassion training is a radical process of letting go of our burdens. We are not trying to be more mindful or more compassionate: that’s just more work. Instead we can sit down for a few minutes, see what arises and give ourselves love just because….just because. And then go gently back into the world.
Chris Germer
Kindness in words creates confidence,
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu
What creates the sense of suffering for me…is the feeling that my mind cannot relax and accommodate the truth of my experience unless it is what I wanted. Perhaps the most painful habit I have is that of delusion, of imagining that somehow I am in charge of how everything turns out. My wishes and my actions have something to do with what happens to me. Ultimately, however I am not in charge. I keep learning this lesson over and over again, both by paying attention in meditation and by paying attention in my life, but when my mind is startled or overwhelmed by stress, I forget
Sylvia Boorstein, in A Year of Living Mindfully
photo ashokajegroo
It’s really important to be careful and attentive to how much one gets swept up into the busyness. Those are two different things — actually doing something and the frantic, busy, scattered energy that you bring to the task. Try to watch and reflect on the feeling behind what you’re doing. What is the energy behind it? Recognize where the feeling of agitation comes from. So much depends upon staying with the breathing — breathing into the activity of what we’re doing. Sometimes it helps to step back and slow down, because often less gets accomplished the more frantic you become, in terms of actual physical accomplishment, as well as in your sense of enjoyment and harmony with others. Often it’s more the attitude that we carry that’s problematic because you can only do one thing at a time, anyway. We carry around in our minds all the things we think we have to do and that stirs up this frantic energy. So just breathe into what we are doing, be with it, not getting too swept up. Make the breath a force for settling.
Ajahn Pasanno, Breathe into busy activity
When all thoughts
Are exhausted
I slip into the woods
And gather
A bunch of shepherd’s purse.
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
Ryoken
Every day is a journey,
and the journey itself is home.
Matsuo Bashô, Oku no Hosomichi (1689).
photo Graham Cole
