It’s pointless to try to find peace through nullifying or erasing the sense world.
Peace only comes through not giving that world more substantiality or more reality than it actually possesses.
Ajahn Amaro
Tag: Freedom
Having infinite faith in each other
Même pour le simple envol d’un papillon,
tout le ciel est nécessaire.
(Even for the simple flight of a butterfly,
all of the sky is necessary.)
Paul Claudel
You are not alone
There are no quick fixes to some of the problems which people can face. Sometimes they can seem even greater by the sense of isolation which they produce. Fear can close us in on ourselves. However, through remaining open to others and sharing, we realize that there is no law that states that we have to go through problems all alone.
The human story is both personal and universal. Our personal experiences of pain and joy, grief and despair, may be unique to each of us in the forms they take, yet our capacity to feel grief, fear, loneliness, and rage, as well as delight, intimacy, joy, and ease, are our common bonds as human beings. They are the language of the heart that crosses the borders of “I” and “you”. In the midst of despair or pain you may be convinced that no one has ever felt this way before. Yet there is no pain you can experience that has not been experienced before by another in a different time or place. Our emotional world is universal.
Christina Feldman. Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World
When we are hurting
Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you. Rumi
It is a bewildering thing in human life, that the thing that causes the greatest fear is the source of the greatest wisdom. Jung
One sees clearly only with the heart
It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go
we have begun our real journey.
Wendell Berry
Challenges
A full life is not made up of an uninterrupted succession of pleasant sensations
but really comes from transforming the way we understand and work through the challenges of our existence.
Matthieu Ricard, The Art of Meditation
Mindfulbalance 