I have no power of miracle
other than the attainment of quiet happiness.
I have no tact
except the exercise of gentleness
The Oracle of Sumuyoshi, Shinto Shrine, Osaka, Japan.
Photo Bill Nicholls
Tag: Be fully present
Ordinary
The sacred is in the ordinary…
it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s own backyard…
travel may be a flight from confronting the scared — this lesson can be easily lost.
To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous
Abraham Maslow, American Psychologist, 1908 – 1970
photo shopping trollies ireland by ardfern
Seeing life as a gift
Every morning I vow to be grateful for the precious gift of my human birth. It’s a big gift, and it includes a lot of stuff I never particularly wanted for my birthday. Some of the things in the package I wish I could exchange for a different size or color. But I want to find out what it means to be a human being — my curiosity remains intense even as I get older — so I say thanks for the whole thing. It’s all of a piece.
In thirteenth-century Japan, Zen Master Dogen wrote, ‘The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading.’ I’m already in it. We are all in it; we are made of it.
Susan Moon
photo mattbuck
Courage
The whole process of meditation is one of creating a good ground, a cradle of loving-kindness where we actually are nurtured. What’s being nurtured is our confidence in our own wisdom, our own health, and our own courage, our own goodheartedness. We develop some sense that the way we are — the kind of personality that we have and the way we express life — is good, and that by being who we are completely and by totally accepting that and having respect for ourselves, we are standing on the ground of warriorship.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape
photo of Croagh Patrick, Co Mayo by Kanchelskis
The way changes as we walk it
Even in a country you know by heart
it’s hard to go the same way twice
The life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident.
To get back before dark
is the art of going.
Wendell Berry, Travelling at Home
photo: padawane
Not trying to impress
The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no “meaning,” they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share.
Peter Matthiessen, the Snow Leopard
