We reduce, concretize, or substantialize experiences or feelings, which are, in their very nature, fleeting or evanescent. In so doing, we define ourselves by our moods and by our thoughts. We do not just let ourselves be happy or sad, for instance; we must become a happy person or a sad one. This is the chronic tendency of the ignorant or deluded mind, to make “things” out of that which is no thing.
Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker
Abba Poemen said of Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
Sayings of the Desert Fathers
Let go of what has passed
Let go of what may come in the future
Let go of what is happening now.
Don’t try to figure it out
Don’t try to make anything happen
Rest, let it settle itself
The Six Key Words of Advice from Tilopa, 988 – 1069, an Indian tantric master and scholar, preserved in the Buddhist Mahāmudrā/ Tibetian tradition
When you get out of the driver’s seat, you find that life can drive itself, that actually life has always been driving itself.
When you get out of the driver’s seat, it can drive itself so much easier – it can flow in ways you never imagined.
Life becomes almost magical. The illusion of the “me” is no longer in the way.
Life begins to flow, and you never know where it will take you.
Adyashanti
Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.
On hearing the Teachings, the wise become perfectly purified, like a lake deep, clear and still.
Dhammapada 81, 82
The mind is always seeking zones of safety, and these zones of safety are continually falling apart. Then we scramble to get another zone of safety back together again. We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart.
That’s samsara: The cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.
Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape
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