Every place is the road of enlightenment
Everywhere is a forest of virtues
Fa-Yen Wen-I, 885 – 998 Chinese Chan teacher
Tag: Be fully present
In this moment
Back to work after the long Easter weekend:
The way to attain balance:
Who dares to equal the person
who falls into neither being nor non-being!
Everyone wishes to step out of
the current of ordinary life,
But this person, after all, comes back
To sit among the coals and the ashes.
Dongshan Liangjie, Chinese Chan (Zen) teacher (806-869), Verses on the Five Ranks
Calling our lives to attention
That the silent presence of your death
Would call your life to attention,
Wake you up to how scarce your time is
And to the urgency to become free
And equal to the call of your destiny.
That you would gather yourself
And decide carefully
How you can live
The life you would love
To look back on
From your deathbed.
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
Letting go of resistance
In the garden of Gethsemane, the last words Jesus spoke were, “Stay awake.” In fact, he says it twice. The Buddha offered the same wisdom; “Buddha” actually means “I am awake.”
Staying awake comes not from willpower but from a wholehearted surrender to this moment – as it is. It’s largely a matter of letting go of resistance to what the moment offers or of clinging to a past moment. It is an acceptance of the full reality of what is right here and now. It will be the task of your whole lifetime.
Richard Rohr, Just This
When feeling overwhelmed
Meditation doesn’t change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart’s capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.
Sylvia Boorstein, Don’t Just do something, Sit There
He said not “Thou shalt not be troubled, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed,” but he said, “Thou shalt not be overcome.”
Julian of Norwich
All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,
Like dew or a flash of lightning; This is how you should observe and reflect.
The Diamond Sutra
Learned helplessness
It is good to remember that …there is a part of you that has always said yes. There is a part of you that is Love itself, and that is what we must fall into. It is already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment, you will realize you are drawing upon a Life that is much larger than your own and from a deeper abundance. Once you learn this, why would you ever again settle for scarcity in your life? “I’m not enough! This is not enough! I do not have enough!” I am afraid this is the way culture trains you to think. It is a kind of learned helplessness. The Gospel message is just the opposite — inherent power.
Richard Rohr
Mindfulbalance 