Tag: heart

Not taken in

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There is  great psychological wisdom in the ancient texts as to how to deal with the strong emotions stirred up by challenges we face every day. Being able to see, without making it a story about ourselves:

You shouldn’t chase after the past, and don’t place expectations on the future.
The past no longer is. The future has not yet come.

Whatever is present in life as it is in the very here and now
you clearly see, right there, right there.
Not taken in.  You dwell in stability and freedom

That’s how you develop the heart.

The Buddha, Bhaddekaratta Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya No.131.

Simple

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The meaning of life is just to be alive.

It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.

And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic

as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

Alan Watts.

photo asio otus

Being thankful ……or closing our eyes

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Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which garden we will tend … When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives,  but when we are grateful for the abundance that is present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure – the illusion of wasteland falls away and we experience heaven on earth.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

photo takashi hososhima

Brightness

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dark-river

The only true antidote to always wanting more, as this 8th Century  reminds us, is to be aware of, and rooted in,  our inherent completeness, an awareness which will contradict the arising feeling of never being satisfied.

There is a solitary brightness without fixed shape or form.
It knows how to listen to the teachings,
it knows how to understand the teachings,
it knows how to teach.
That solitary brightness is you.

Linji Yìxuán, Chinese Zen Buddhist monk, died 866

Sunday Quote: Whats deepest inside

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dark-woods

What in your life is calling you…

When all the noise is silenced, the meetings adjourned…the lists laid aside,
And the wild Iris blooms by itself in the dark forest…

What still pulls on your soul?

Rumi

The kingdom of the eternal

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When we love and allow ourselves to be loved,

we begin more and more to inhabit the kingdom of the eternal.  

Fear changes into courage, emptiness becomes plenitude, and distance becomes intimacy.

John O’Donohue, AnamCara