Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang, Chinese writer, 1895 – 1976
Tag: balance
The importance of empty days
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.
May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Breathing and letting go
Just staying with Thich Nhat Hanh to start this day, as his simple words can be one way of working with fearful thoughts as they arise. So if you notice yourself getting anxious, or the mind beginning to rush and lean forward, you might like to try saying these words to yourself, aligning them with the rhythm of your breathing:
I breathe in, I breathe out.
Deeper, gentler.
I become calm, I let go.
I smile, I am free.
photo: jamesjen
The wind blows through
Maybe it is because it is windy here in Ireland, that I post a reflection on the wind to help us deal with moments we are afraid, feeling deficient, or burdened with the need to “become”, to be better, as Sharon Salzberg described this morning :
It is essential to understand that an emotion is merely something that arises, remains and then goes away. A storm comes, it stays a while, and then it moves away. At the critical moment remember you are much more than your emotions. This is a simple thing that everyone knows, but you may need to be reminded of it: you are more than your emotions.
Thich Nhat Hahn, Healing Pain and Dressing Wounds
Not leaning
In our usual mind state, we are continually activating the process that in Buddhist terminology is known as “bhava,” which literally means “becoming.” In this space of becoming, we are subtly leaning forward into the future, trying to have security based on feeling that we can hold on, we can try to keep things from changing. We are continually out of balance in this state – in meditation we might notice that we even try to feel the next breath while the present one is still happening. When we speak about letting go, or unplugging, or renouncing, we are talking about dropping the burden of becoming and just returning our awareness to the natural center of our being, returning to a state of natural peace.
Sharon Salzberg, How Doing Nothing Can Help You Truly Live, Huffington Post
photo arcalino
Changing and unchanging
In the MBSR group last night in Moone we were talking about how each day we are confronted with new experiences and challenges – unexpected deadlines, getting a parking ticket, the wind bringing down trees. We can be faced with changing feelings and attitudes, moods and emotions. However, as we said, it is not so much the experiences in our life that are crucial but how we relate to our experiences. Through sitting we are nourishing something that does not change – our awareness – which allows us say, as Tara Brach suggested yesterday, “This too”:
The water in the stream may have changed many times,
but the reflection of the moon and the stars remains the same.
Rumi
