To be interested in the changing seasons
is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
George Santayana
Tag: Be fully present
A simple practice
Driving is a daily task in this society. I am not suggesting that you stop driving, just that you do it consciously. While we are driving, we think only about arriving. Therefore, every time that we see a red light, we are not very happy. The red light is a kind on enemy that prevents us from attaining our goal. But we can also see the red light as a bell of mindfulness, reminding us to return to the present moment…. It is easy to transform a feeling of irritation into a pleasant feeling. Although it is the same red light, it becomes different. It becomes a friend, helping us to remember that it is only in the present moment that we can live our lives…
The next time you are caught in a traffic jam, don’t fight it. It’s useless to fight. Sit back and smile to yourself. Enjoy the present moment, breathing and smiling, and make the other people in your car happy. Happiness is there if you know how to breathe and smile, because happiness can always be found in the present moment. Practicing meditation is to go back to the present moment to encounter the flower, the blue sky, the child. Happiness is available.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step.
Looking inside
A human being has so many skins inside,
covering the depths of the heart.
We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves!
Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or a bear’s,
cover the soul.
Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
Meister Eckhart
Pushing or pulling
Many of us don’t allow ourselves to be relaxed. Why do we always try to run and run, even while having our breakfast, while having our lunch, while walking, while sitting? There’s something pushing and pulling us all the time. We make ourselves busy in the hopes of having happiness in the future. In the sutra “Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone,” the Buddha said clearly, “Don’t get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don’t get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Moment is perfect
No road
Walker, your footsteps
are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road,
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea.
Antonio Machado, Proverbs and songs #29
photo arbget47j
Simply being there
We are either in the state of “having lived” or “will be living” — that’s how our mind functions. Often, our mind is dwelling in the past and we are always “sort of living” in the state of past memories. Our mind has never been free to live in the present: it’s always under the dictatorship of our memories of the past or dreams of the future. We have a long list of plans for how we will live in the future — how we will achieve this and that — and we invest our energy, time and effort in these dreams. As a result, we may actually achieve a certain number of our dreams, but when the future becomes the present, we don’t have the time or wisdom to experience it. We don’t have the space, the freedom, to enjoy the dreams that have come true in the present.
The whole purpose of mindfulness of mind is to bring us back to this tiny spot of the present, the momentary nature of our mind, and to experience the infinite space and freedom within that speck of existence. In order to do that, we must experience the lively nature of our mind, which is so present, so momentary and so fresh. Every individual moment, every individual fragment of that mind, is completely pure and fresh in its own state. The whole point is to experience this freshness and genuineness — the honest face of that tiny spot — without coloring it with our memories, concepts, philosophies or expectations. Experiencing it without all these is what we call simply being there.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Tiny Slippery Spot of Mind
