Calm in quiet times is not real calm:
When you can be calm in the midst of activity, this is the true state of nature.
Happiness in time of comfort is not real happiness
When you can be happy in the midst of challenges, then you see the true potential of the mind.
Hanchu Daoren, Chinese philosopher, 1572 – 1620
photo bureau of land management
Stop talking, Stop thinking
And there is nothing that you will not understand
Seng-Ts’an, Third Chinese Patriarch
photo donald bain
Those who serve life adapt to changes as they go along. Changes arise from the nature of time; those who know the nature of time do not have fixed ways. Therefore I say “Ways can be guides, but not fixed paths; names can be designated, but not fixed labels”.
Master Wen, Wen-Tzu, precise date unknown, c 5th century BC
photo tognopop
Often what keeps us from joy
is the menacing assumption
that life is happening other than where we are
Mark Nepo
photo of Bantry from outside the town by pam Brophy
Through mindfulness practice you began to experience how conditioned the world is and how these conditions constantly change. To free ourselves, we need to quieten the mind through some mindfulness in meditation. Then, instead of identifying with the changing conditions, we learn to release them and turn toward consciousness itself, to rest in the knowing. Ajahn Chah called this pure awareness, “the original mind,” and resting in “the one who knows.” We can be in the midst of an experience, being upset or angry or caught by some problem, and then step back from it and rest in pure awareness. We let go.
Jack Kornfield, This Fantastic, Unfolding Experiment
More encouragement to discover our inner strength and beauty, this time in the poetry of Kabir:
Don’t go outside your house to see flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens.
Kabir, Translated from the Hindi by Robert Bly
photo photdharma
