Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things; amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely, knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.
John Tarrant, The Light inside the Dark
Whatever is in front of you today, that’s what you need to deal with. There is no point waiting for another life to come along.
‘Whatever you meet is the path.’ To practice this slogan is to know that no matter what is going on – no matter how distracted you think you are, no matter how much you feel like a terribly lazy individual who has completely lost track of her good intentions and is now hopelessly astray – even then you have the responsibility and the ability to take all negativity, bad circumstance, and difficulty and turn it into the path. You are constantly being found, whether you know it or not.
Norman Fischer, Life is Tough. Here Are Six Ways to Deal With It.
If I am not careful – if I rise frantic from my bed, full of small concerns – the mystical flow of imagination at rest will be broken, the past and the future will rush in to claim my mind and I will be swept up into life’s petty details and myriad obligations…Something precious is lost if we rush headlong into the details of life without pausing for a moment to pay homage to the mystery of life and the gift of another day.
Kent Nerburn, Small Graces, The Quiet Gifts of Everyday Life
We find out the heart only by dismantling what the heart knows
Jack Gilbert, American Poet, 1925 – 2012
Fall floods have washed away the planks of the bridge;
shouldering our sandals, we wade the narrow stream.
I dabble in the flow, delighted by the shallowness of the stream,
admiring how firm the stones are.
The point in life is to know what’s enough –
why envy those otherworld immortals?
With the happiness held in one inch-square heart
you can fill the whole space between heaven and earth.
Gensei, Japanese monk and poet,
1623―1668
I want to learn how to walk down the ladder gracefully.
I have this image – I would like to get smaller and smaller in a relevant way.
Carly Simon, on what she learned from dealing with cancer and other life setbacks, quoted in Sara Davidson, The First Day of the Rest of My Life
