Our minds are such that we are often more asleep than awake
to the unique beauty and possibilities
of each present moment as it unfolds.
Jon Kabat Zinn
Tag: Be fully present
Importance in the ordinary
The ordinary arts we practice every day at home
are of more importance to the soul
than their simplicity might suggest
Thomas Moore
When you are tired or confused
Regard meditation as recognizing the way things are. To start a meditation is always to recognize where you are right here and now, so that, if your mind is scrambled at the end of the day, then just recognize scrambling. Acknowledge the feeling and the aversion to it – the wanting it to be otherwise. This is the right way of meditating. If after a hectic day, you try and stop all your mental reactions when you go home, it will lead to failure, and then you will feel that you cannot meditate. So instead, you have to start using the situation as it is. You have to learn to objectify the feeling of being scrambled or the idea that you can’t meditate. You have to just recognize that these feelings and ideas are objects of your mind and that you are a witness to them. If you feel a mess and confused, then practice fully accepting that.
Ajahn Sumedho, The Mind and the Way
Meeting, not running away
During the moments of a pause, we become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future, on our way somewhere else. This gives us a fundamental choice in how we respond: We can continue our futile attempts at managing our experience, or we can meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of Radical Acceptance.
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance
The key to happiness
Happiness lies not in finding what is missing,
but in finding what is present
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance
Each moment is sacred
There is no less holiness at this time — as you are reading this — than there was the day the Red Sea parted . . . There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha’s bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said ‘Maid, arise’ to the centurion’s daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree.
Anne DIlliard, For the Time Being
