Coming to the mid point of winter, short dark days
Life is uncertain, surprises are likely.
If you are ….in a dark place, you still have what really counts.
If you are in a predicament, there will be a gate.
John Tarrant, It Would Be a Pity to Waste A Good Crisis
There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man standing alongside the road, shouts, “Where are you going?” and the first man replies, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!” This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don’t know where we are going, and we can’t stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war within ourselves…We have to learn the art of stopping – stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.
Thich Nhat Hahn, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
The challenge – to be truly alive in ordinary moments, not needing continual distraction and stimulation..
As I see it, there isn’t so much to do. Just be ordinary – put on your robes, eat your food, and pass the time doing nothing.
Master Linji, 9th Century Chinese Zen Master, founder of the Rinzai school of Zen, Teaching 18
The noise of the wind and the rain continued all through yesterday and overnight, arising, passing away and returning.
Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning.
Everything is a gift.
Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging. A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it – that alone can be like waking up from a dream.
David Steindal-Rast
A storm is predicted for today with very high winds on the West coast of Ireland. We live in an inner and outer world that is always changing, but give a lot of importance to the things which pass through each day. We can be blown out of control, ceaselessly worrying about the past (which cannot be changed) or the future (which exists only in our imagination). Our practice to find a still place: the mind that knows movement does not, in itself, move.
One windy day two monks were arguing about a flapping banner. The first said, “I say the banner is moving, not the wind.” The second said, “I say the wind is moving, not the banner.” A third monk passed by and said, “The wind is not moving. The banner is not moving. Your minds are moving.”
Raymond Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near
When you sit in a café, with a lot of music in the background and a lot of projects in your head, you’re not really drinking your coffee or your tea. You’re drinking your projects, you’re drinking your worries. You are not real, and the coffee is not real either. Your coffee can only reveal itself to you as a reality when you go back to your self and produce your true presence, freeing yourself from the past, the future, and from your worries. When you are real, the tea also becomes real and the encounter between you and the tea is real. This is genuine tea drinking.
Thich Nhat Hahn
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