To be rooted
is perhaps the most important and least recognized need
of the human soul.
Simone Weil, French Philosopher, 1909 – 1943
Tag: balance
Some dissatisfaction is good
Contrary to most professional opinion, a gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of “mental illness,” nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality and forces us to become alive in a special sense – to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided.
Ken Wilbur, No Boundary
Be Happy
One of my meditation teachers used to end each of our interviews … and say to me, “Remember, Sylvia, be happy.” I actually for a long time thought it was a salutation, like “have a good day” or something that you say just in a routine kind of a way, and it took me a long time to realize that it was an instruction, “Be happy.” Not only that it was an instruction but that it was a wisdom transmission – that happiness was a possibility. I understand that happiness to mean, the happiness of a mind that’s alert, that’s awake to the amazing potential of being a person in a life, with a mind that’s opened, that sees everything that’s going on, and realizes what an amazing possibility this is, and with a heart that’s open, the heart that responds naturally as hearts do, in compassion, in connection with friendliness, with love, with consolation when it needs to: That that’s the happiness of life – a mind that’s awake, a heart that’s engaged.
Sylvia Boorstein, Stanford Keynote Speech, 2005
photo joe sarembe
Stop chasing after
De temps en temps,
il est bon de faire une pause dans notre quête du bonheur et juste être heureux.
Now and then
it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness
and just be happy.
Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet, 1880 – 1918
photp ingrid taylar
Mind states that pass through
Many people fail to distinguish between their true nature and their personality traits, particularly their less desirable traits. The fact is you are not the worst characteristics of your personality. It is the nature of the untrained mind to want what it perceives as advantageous and to fear or hate what seems painful. Discovering how your heart and mind can work together to use these feelings allows you to move beyond them. You may feel overwhelmed by the circumstances of your present life or bound by past traumatic events. Again, this is a failure in perception. They are just mind-states which can be known. They can be seen as impermanent and not belonging to you and, therefore, they do not ultimately define your true nature.
Philip Moffitt
Bringing awareness and balance
Meditation is an experiment we are making, bringing us out of our normal habits of intense self-judgment, comparing, and impatience. Mindfulness isn’t about what is happening; it is about how we are relating to what is happening — how much awareness, balance and compassion we are bringing to this moment’s experience, whatever it is.
Sharon Salzberg
