Tag: Be fully present

Welcoming all parts

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File:Torki Holy Trinity.jpg

I find hospitality to be one of the most significant and most challenging of all the monastic virtues… There is another dimension to this practice which we sometimes might be tempted to forget which is inner hospitality. Within each of us we have a multitude of feelings. experiences, and inner selves that we would prefer to close the door on. We have many inner strangers knocking at the door of your hearts. How many times have I refused to welcome grief or anger, the scary new dream, the embarrassing aspect I want to deny, or the part of myself that doesn’t seem to fit with others?

Christine Valters Paintner, Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics

Acceptance

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True freedom is living as if you had completely chosen

whatever you feel or experience in this moment.

This inner alignment with the Now is the end of suffering

Eckhart Tolle, Silence Speaks

photo Sharada Prasad

Enough light

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Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Donne–nous aujourd‘hui notre pain de ce jour

French translation Matthew 6:11

photo Sasikanth balachandran

Sunday Quote: Begin again

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If the angel deigns to reappear

It is because you have persuaded him

not with tears but with your humble decision always to begin again

Rainer Maria Rilke

photo mark voorendt

Trust

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When we get our spiritual house in order, we’ll be dead. This goes on.

You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness.

Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you.

It is trust, not certainty.

Flannery O’Connor, American Author, 1925 – 1964, A Prayer Journal.

photo chi king

Dropping the filter

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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A similar idea to yesterday’s, this time from the Eastern traditions, to guide us as we “wander” through this day. What we think we know can sometimes get in the way, or close us down, to what is happening before us:

Jizo asked Hogen, “Where are you going?”

“I just wander aimlessly” replied Hogen.

“What is the nature of your wandering,” asked Jizo.

“I don’t know,” replied Hogen.

“Not knowing is the most intimate,” replied Jizo.

And at this Hogen experienced great enlightenment.

Zen Story

One Zen story states, “Not knowing is most intimate.” I understand this to mean that what is most essential is not understood through the filter of our judgments, past knowledge, or memories. When not-knowing helps these to drop away, the result can be a greater immediacy – what some might call being intimate. This practice of beginner’s mind is to cultivate an ability to meet life without preconceived ideas, interpretations, or judgments.

Gil Fronsdal

photo: Pfctdayelise