Still in China. This time an even earlier thinker. We could save ourselves a lot of hassle if we truly lived this:
We cling to our own point of view, as if everything depended on it.
Yet our views have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
Chuang Tzu, Chinese Philosopher, 4th century
Looking East today, to mark the Chinese New Year, with a similar idea to yesterday’s post
Among the sixteen types of meditation, the baby’s practice is the best.
YuanWu Keqin, Chinese Chan monk, 1063–1135
We have a tendency to live out of the past and to limit different experiences and the people we encounter today to what we expect of them. In this way we lose any sense of wonder or newness
The day you teach the child the name of the bird,
the child will never see that bird again.
Krisnamurti
Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
Sayings of the Desert Fathers
This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning
John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us
Today is Candlemas, so I could post about light and darkness, as the days begin to noticeably lengthen in the Northern Hemisphere and hope returns. But instead, sticking with an idea in yesterdays post, different tradition:
Every blade of grass
has a constellation in the heavens
that strikes it and says, ‘Grow! Grow!’
The Talmud
A first month over. Time passes and seasons change..
Become Passers-By
Gospel of Thomas, 42
Another possible but less likely translation is, ‘Come into being as you pass away’; A medieval author, Petrus Alphonsi, preserves a saying much like saying 42 in his Clerical Instruction: ‘This world is, as it were, a bridge. Therefore, pass over it, only do not lodge there.’
In other words, by meditation practice get grounded in a still center during this life, finding a permanent home there instead of being tossed around by samsara, this world of changes.
Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas at earlychristianwritings.com
