Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and to be awake….We tend to daydream all the time, speculating about the future and dwelling on the past. Zen practice is about appreciating your life in this moment. If you are truly aware of five minutes a day, then you are doing pretty well. We are beset by both the future and the past, and there is no reality apart from the here and now.
Peter Matthiessen, 1927 – 2014. American Writer
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint’,
then by all means paint,
and that voice will be silenced.
Van Gogh
The start of a long weekend here in Ireland. Also the clocks go forward this evening, meaning that the evenings are darker earlier and autumn feels more fully present. A natural time to become less “busy”.
The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952 – Red Brocade
It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our effort to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness.
Pema Chödrön
Mindfulness practice isn’t meant to eliminate thinking but aims rather to help us know what we’re thinking when we’re thinking it, just as we want to know what we’re feeling when we’re feeling it….Meditation is like going into an old attic room and turning on the light. In that light we see everything — the beautiful treasures we’re grateful to have unearthed; the dusty, neglected corners that inspire us to say, “I’d better clean that up”; the unfortunate relics of the past that we thought we had gotten rid of years ago. We acknowledge them all, with an open, spacious, and loving awareness.
It’s never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn’t depend on how long it’s been running; a shift in perspective doesn’t depend on how long you’ve held the old view.
Sharon Salzberg, Mindfulness and Difficult Emotions
Ireland moving back to much tighter restrictions again for 6 weeks, requiring that our inner resources be strong:
Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.
Where is there a place for you to be? No place […] Nothing outside you can give you any place […]
In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.
Flannery O’Connor, 1925 – 1964, American novelist, Wise Blood
Mindfulbalance 