Tag: Be fully present

Use breathing to ground yourself in stormy weather

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Our breathing is a stable solid ground that we can take refuge in. Regardless of our internal weather – our thoughts, emotions and perceptions- our breathing is always with us like a faithful friend. Whenever we feel carried away, or sunken in a deep emotion, or scattered in worries and projects, we return to our breathing to collect and anchor our mind.

We feel the flow of air coming in and going out of our nose. We feel how light and natural, how calm and peaceful our breathing functions. At any time, we can return to this peaceful source of life.

We may like to recite: “Breathing in I know that I am breathing in.
Breathing out I know that I am breathing out.”

We do not need to control our breath. Feel the breath as it actually is. It may be long or short, deep or shallow. Conscious breathing is the key to uniting body and mind and bringing the energy of mindfulness into everyday life.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Sunday Quote: Fleeting beauty

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Blossoms in full bloom at the moment, but their beauty only lasts for about a week. In Japanese, the term used for passing beauty is 儚い (hakanai), meaning “fleeting” or “fragile”, reminding us to fully inhabit each moment without holding onto it

Better it is to live one day seeing the rise and fall of things

than to live as hundred years without ever seeing the rise and fall of things.

The Dhammapada, 8, 113

Space will not hold paint

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The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that the mind becomes like space that cannot be tainted. If someone throws paint, it is not the air that will change color. Space will not hold the paint; it will not grasp it in any way. Only the walls, the barriers to space, can be affected by the paint. The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that their minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned. No matter what kind of material is thrown into it, it will not burn. Many experiences – good, bad, and indifferent – are thrown into the flowing river of our lives, but we are not burned, owing to the power of the love in our hearts

Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness

A simple practice for when you are anxious today

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Just the wind blowing: allowing life to move through this moment:

Take a comfortable position,

Now imagine you are in a beautiful place in nature. Surrounded by beauty you can feel the wind blowing around you

Let all of your conscious experience — sounds, sensations, thoughts, emotions, everything — become the wind.

Feel all of it moving and changing, arriving, moving around and over you, and then going.

Notice how the wind takes on different qualities — soft, strong, harsh, gusty, gentle.

Relax as the wind blows around you.

Let it come and go in all its forms. You remain here, in calmness, abiding.

Jeffrey Brantley  and Wendy Millstine, Daily Meditations for Calming Your Anxious Mind,

Space that leads to profound peace

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The wisdom that arises from mindfulness makes space for the sense of self to be and not to be.

Not believing any one these fleeting identities to be who we really are, we release being concerned about any of it. In fact, we sit back and watch the whole show like an amused grandmother, quietly watching over the antics of her grandchildren. This is the profound peace we are so busy searching for. It does not come from creating and perfecting our personality.

Freedom comes when we see through the machinations of “self” and cease to be bothered by or believe any of it.

Mark Coleman, From Suffering to Peace: The True Promise of Mindfulness

At peace

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Externally, if you let go of  fame and profit, your body will be at peace. 

Inwardly, if you let go of over-thinking and rumination, your mind will be at peace.

Anonymous Taoist, late Qing dynasty (1644-1711), Secret Records of Understanding the Way,