We are each living in our own soap opera. We do not see things as they really are. We see only our own interpretations. This is because our minds are always so busy. When we try to look into the mind itself, we cannot see anything below our surface consciousness. But when the mind calms down it becomes clear. This mental clarity enables us to see things as they really are, instead of projecting our cometary onto everything.
Ani Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a Mountain Lake
It takes time to really see that thoughts and emotions are mere movements of the mind. They are, after all, the fabric of who we think we are, and everything we do is an expression of thought and emotion. We take them so seriously. But take a closer look, test this against your own experience, and see for yourself. If we can gain this recognition, we are on our way to freedom, for instead of being sucked into the contents of our mind and acting out everything that arises within it, we will watch those contents melt like snowflakes on a hot rock.
Andrew Holecek, The Power and the Pain.
When people … put on masks, they hide their center from others and from themselves. They hide their source from themselves and from others. They hide their cry from others because somewhere they are inserted in society and they have their place and they are recognized in their power. So they wear a mask because they have a position to defend. Often their function is their mask. But when you are dying, you have no mask. It is a pity that we have to wait until our last breath to accept who we are!
Jean Vanier, Founder of the L’Arche Communities.
The highest point of happiness is to wish to be what you already are
Desiderius Erasmus,
A lot of our anxiety comes from what we imagine the future to be like, and how we tend to fill in the worst possible scenarios and seem to not imagine positive alternatives. I have noticed since returning to Ireland that a lot of media time is taken up by discussions of possible disasters and downturns which may soon befall the country, particularly in the economic realm. Since, as the Roman poet Terence reminded us, there are as many opinions as there are people, this speculation only succeeds in maintaining a sense of anxious rumination, without always having any solid base. It can often be the same in our personal stories, and therefore a good remedy can be simply to recognize our mental chatter for what it is and practice staying in the present.
Just as we tend to treat the details of future events that we do imagine as though they were actually going to happen, we have an equally troubling tendency to treat the details of future events that we don’t imagine as though they were not going to happen. In other words, we fail to consider how much imagination fills in, but we also fail to consider how much it leaves out.
Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
picture: “The Future Man” by Paul Klee
People think they’re not computers because they have feelings and computers don’t have feelings. But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.
Mark Hadden, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
photo pucky2012
