Tag: Be fully present

What really matters

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Sooner or later, just by living, we’re reduced to what matters; as many of the things we thought were important and irreplaceable are broken or snapped like small branches in a storm. And somehow, as we heal from the scratches and bruises, we stand taller, covered by less. It’s then we begin to feel gratitude, even though it’s hard to be grateful for what is difficult. In the earned nakedness that follows honest experience, we are very close to the thread that connects us to everything.

Mark Nepo, The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be

Patience

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Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Non-Involvement

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Non-involvement is about settling back into the present moment, relaxing into the way things are right now; it’s about letting go of the ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts,’ the past, the future and the imaginary, and meeting things as they arise in the present…. Letting go is also about giving things time to shift and settle, and being patient with oneself. It’s about not comparing yourself with others, and letting go of self-images. Letting go makes us more flexible and broad-minded. 

Ajahn Sucitto, Meditation, A Way to Awakening

Always rushing somewhere else

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Only 22 shopping days till Christmas….

Along with the speediness we have the sense that there is not enough time. It’s interesting to observe how often we are living with that perception. It is usually accompanied by a squeeze of anxiety: “I’m not going to be prepared,” and a chain of insecurities. “There’s something around the corner that is going to be too much,” “I’m going to fall short,” “I won’t get something critical done.” There’s this sense that we’re on our way somewhere else and that what’s right here is not the time that matters. We’re trying to get to the point in the future when we’ve finally checked everything off our to-do list and we can rest. As long as this is our habit, we are racing toward the end of our life. We are skimming the surface, and unable to arrive in our life. When we’re speeding along, we violate our own natural rhythms in a way that prevents us from listening to our inner life and being in a resonant field with others. We get tight. We get small. We override our capacity to appreciate beauty, to celebrate, to serve from the heart.

Tara Brach, Gift to the Soul: The Space of Presence

It continues to flow

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A different wisdom tradition, this time in the Hebrew Scriptures. Things move on, governed by ‘time and chance’; the underlying attitude is one of trust

A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skilful; but time and chance happen to them all.

Book of Ecclesiastes

Endings and beginnings

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In the Christian liturgical calendar tomorrow is the last day of the year, with a new year starting on Sunday in Advent. All wisdom and religious traditions give guidance on how to work with the passing of time, how to celebrate fully and be complete in each moment which we have. This text is from the Stoic philosophical viewpoint: 

Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books every day..The person that puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.

Seneca,  Moral Letters, 101, 7b – 8a