Sunday quote: What matters

Wisdom is not about knowing more facts but about knowing which facts matter.

Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.

Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal 

keep the heart open

Every morning I walk like this around

the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart

ever close, I am as good as dead.

Mary Oliver, The Book of Time

Meeting life

When the mind is calm and spacious, we see things more clearly. Instead of being caught in habitual reactions, we have the freedom to pause, to breathe, and to choose how we respond. That space between stimulus and response is where wisdom arises. It’s where we remember that we don’t have to be ruled by every passing thought or emotion. In that spaciousness, kindness and clarity can emerge, and we can meet life with greater ease.

Sylvia Boorstein

Each day

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.

Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways,

and they’re still beautiful

Alice Walker

Tensed

We don’t suffer because of life’s changes.

We suffer because we demand that life be a solid block of happiness.

The problem isn’t the wave; it’s our grip on the boat

Ajahn Sucitto, dharma talk, On Resistence

Defended

Grace is the word for what it takes to lay down your armour.

To stop protecting yourself long enough to be touched by something beyond your own strategies

Padraig O’Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World