To listen is to continually give up all expectation and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.
Mark Nepo
The quality of mind we are talking about……. is a mind which responds to something with attention and then returns to its own natural state. It doesn’t elaborate on it, doesn’t get caught up in it, doesn’t get excited about it. It just notes that this is what is happening. Every time it happens, it notes it. It doesn’t get blasé. It doesn’t become conditioned. In this way, it is like a child’s mind. When something interesting happens, it will note it and then let it go and move onto the next thing. This is what is meant by a childlike mind. It sees everything as if for the first time. It doesn’t have this whole backlog of preconditioned ideas about things. You see a glass and you see it as it is, rather than seeing all the other glasses you have seen in your life, together with your ideas and theories about glasses and whether you like glasses in this or that shape, or the kind of glass you drank out of yesterday. We are talking about a mind which sees the thing freshly in the moment. That’s the quality we are aiming for. We lose this as we become adults. We are trying to reproduce this fresh mind, which sees things without all this conditioning.
Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a mountain lake: teachings on practical Buddhism
We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
Be gentle and patient both with yourself and with others, no matter what comes along. In this way, waiting becomes a fulfilling, very meaningful experience. If you live gently, honorably, focusing on the cultivation of your heart, good things are sure to follow. Try to live as purely and as simply and as gently as you can. Relax. Be flexible. Be forgiving. Be creative. Be loving. Those who cross your path may need you.
Robert Lax, The Way of the Dreamcatcher.
To be at peace with myself means to accept myself the way I am; to reduce the split that is created by the image of what I would like to be and who I really am; to be patient with myself, especially in regard to what conflicts with my idealized self.
Anselm Grun
Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
– slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.
Thich Nhat Hahn
