Tag: Be fully present

A real miracle

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File:Path , Muirsheil Country Park - geograph.org.uk - 30201.jpg
I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child  – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

photo richard webb

Sunday Quote : When we stay quiet

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File:Crystal Lake Thanksgiving (2987367939).jpg

Silence is the closest thing to God we know.

Meister Eckhart

photo briyyz

Right here, right now

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It [our way] is never apart from this very place;

what is the use of traveling around to practice?

Dogen,   General Advice on the Principles of Zazen

Without a trace

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drops2

It is completely natural that thoughts keep on arising. The point is not to try to stop them, but to liberate them. This is done by remaining in a state of simplicity, which lets thoughts arise and vanish again without stringing onto them any further thoughts. When you no longer perpetuate the movement of thoughts, they dissolve by themselves without leaving any trace. When you no longer spoil the state of stillness with mental fabrications, you can maintain the natural serenity of mind without any effort. Sometimes, let your thoughts flow and watch the unchanging nature behind them.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Each moment

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File:Child drawing.jpg

Two quotes from Emerson on surprise and wonder to prompt us to look with fresh eyes today :

In liberated moments, we know that a new picture of life is already possible

The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

photo D Sharon Pruitt

Begin afresh

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buds

I was reminded of Larkin’s beautiful poem by the buds opening on the trees in the garden and on the hedgerows around here in County Kildare.  This time of year  moves him from a reflection on loss and grief, to thoughts on being born again,  to finally being convinced to begin over again.  The message is like something “almost being said”, so we need to create time to see this: we learn from nature and from this season if we are still enough to listen.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin, The Trees