The great lesson from the true mystics, from the zen monks, from the humanistic and transpersonal psychologists, is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s own back yard. This lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.
Abraham Maslow
Got news yesterday of the sudden death of an old friend, who I had not seen in over 18 months due to pandemic restrictions. It made me think of the choices we have as to where we invest our energy and our thoughts. Life can pass us by, and we waste a lot of it rehashing our familiar litany of fears, tired old stories and self-doubts.
In Zen temples there is a small wooden board called a “han” that is struck with a mallet to signal that it is time for some part of the daily routine. It might have the words “Shoji jidai” written on it in ink. Have you ever seen this? The words mean “life is full of fortune and misfortune, but cherish being alive, every single day. Life will pass you by“
Come now, open your eyes.
What kind of day should we make today?
Shunmyo Masumo, Zen: The Art of Simple Living
Restrictions have eased and some travel can finally resume, even if for work. Outward movement allows us to observe inner, ongoing, movement of the mind which is always wanting, and trying to fix life the way we would like to find it. Familiar places and yet changed. We like to know where we are going, but physical journeys can be planned, the inner journey less so.
Whales follow
the whale-roads.
Geese, roads of magnetized air.
Yet how often
the heart
that set out for Peru
arrives in China,
Steering hard.
consulting the charts
the whole journey.
Jane Hirshfield, China
The place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you.
Our Beloved has bowed there knowing
you were coming.
I could tell you a priceless secret about
your real worth dear pilgrim.
Any unkindness to yourself,
any confusion about others,
will keep one
from accepting the grace, the love!
Hafiz, Persian Sufi poet
We are part of something greater, so we don’t have to work so hard to make things happen. Even if one part of life breaks, the ‘hidden instruments’ keep playing unimpeded:
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
….even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Rumi, Where Everything Is Music [extract]
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
This morning the Summer Solstice occurred at 04:31 in Ireland, beginning the northern hemisphere’s longest day. Different cultures knew the significance of this date and marked it by bonfires – as I will this evening – to recognize the ongoing gift of each day of light and to celebrate the energy of life.
These rituals remind us that we are at a midpoint in the year, which hints at every midpoint in our lives, every letting go and starting over. Life passes and we discover again its “dearest freshness”. We relax into its mystery, without looking for answers, without clinging to security.
Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more. At birth we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible.
Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty.
John O’Donohue.
Mindfulbalance 