Necessary advice for life in Ireland, but in a more general sense it is a way of working with the mind. Once we fix on one desired result, inevitably the alternative seems a disappointment. Appreciation is a peaceful state of mind.
For after all, the best thing one can do
when it is raining
is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 – 1882, American Poet
Do non-doing;
Strive for the effortless.
Find flavor in that which has no flavor.
Deal with the small as if it were the great, deal with the few as if it were the many,
Respond to resentment with virtue.
Plan for the difficult while it is still easy;
work on the great while it is still small.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 63
Watch the thought and its ways with care
And let it spring out of love
Born out of concern for all beings.
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.
The Dhammapada
Someday we’ll live in the sky.
Meanwhile, the house of our lives is the world.
The fields, the ponds, the birds.
The thick black oaks — surely they are the
children of God.
The feistiness among the tiger lilies,
the hedges of runaway honeysuckle, that no one owns.
Where is it? I ask, and then
my feet know it.
One jump, and I’m home.
Mary Oliver, Boundaries
All that power from roots.
Imagine you must survive
without running
Ada Limón , Ancestors
He knows how to enjoy the fullness of each moment, as his own mind is serene and at peace. There is a sufficiency in the things around him
At Nantai I sit quietly with an incense burning,
One day of contentment, all things are forgotten,
Not that my mind is stopped and thoughts are put away,
But that there is really nothing to disturb my serenity.
Shou-an , quoted in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism – First Series
