Tag: Be fully present

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,

Hard to believe

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All truth is a paradox.

Grief,  friends, time and tears will heal you.

Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk. The first thing God says to Moses is, “Take off your shoes.”

We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know.

Anne Lamott, 12 Truths I Learnt from Life and Writing

A drop of water

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Our everyday world may have gotten more restricted; This does not necessarily mean less rich.

A drop of water has the tastes of the water of the seven seas: there is no need to experience all the ways of worldly life.

The reflections of the moon on one thousand rivers are from the same moon:

The mind must be full of light.

Hong Zicheng, Chinese Philosopher, 1572-1620

Life flows

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When effort is needed, effort will appear.
When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself.
You need not push life about.
Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment,
which is the dying now to the now. For living is dying.
Without death life cannot be.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1897 – 1981, Hindu Non-Dualist teacher

Serene

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They don’t grieve over the past,

Nor do they yearn for the future

They live only in the present

That’s why their face is serene

Its from yearning for the future

And grieving over the past

This is how fools become withered

Like a fresh reed that’s been hacked down

The Buddha, Collected Discourses, 1.10