I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures:
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 67, Stephen Mitchell trans,
My daughter, Gina, and I like to shop in consignment stores for vintage clothing. There are great finds in such shops, a silk paisley scarf, a retro leather jacket, sequined heels. Many of the clothes have a small stain, a missing button or a slight tear in the fabric. I noticed in one store, all the clothes carried a cardboard tag with the price and the disclaimer “As Is”
I like these tags. I think we should hang them on ourselves and each other like Christmas tree ornaments. What a beautiful gift to accept ourselves, others and our circumstances “As Is”, with all the beauty, imperfections and challenges that make up this very human life of ours.
Frank Ostaseski, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering,
it doesn’t mean that something is wrong.
What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth.
Suffering is part of life,
and we don’t have to feel it’s happening because we personally made the wrong move.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Hard Times
Very windy these days, as first the tail end of the tropical storm passed over the country, and this morning Storm Ali shakes things up.
The first of the leaves start to fall.
The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” “Own-being” means separate, independent existence… everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity.
Lewis Redmond, Emptiness: The Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism
To dare is to lose one’s footing temporarily;
to not dare, is to lose one’s life
Søren Kierkegaard
Consciously inhabiting our senses is a pathway to the present moment, to feeling truly alive. Tuning in to our senses in nature invites presence and joy, whether we’re smelling the first full bouquets of apple and cherry blossoms in spring, seeing a crystalline carpet of dew on the lawn in the early morning, feeling the warm moisture of a tropical breeze as it softens our bodies and melts our hard edges, or hearing the dawn chorus of birdsong. Living with such a full awareness, we can be present to life’s gifts when they present themselves.
Mark Coleman, Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path to Self Discovery
