Awake, my dear.
Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of light and let it breathe.
Hafiz
photo Mullaghrellan Woods Kilkea
Tag: heart
Choosing
We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid,
or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.
We always have this choice.
Pema Chodron
Not listening to our fears
The imagination is far better at inventing tortures than life because the imagination is a demon within us and it knows where to strike, where it hurts. It knows the vulnerable spot, and life does not, our friends and lovers do not, because seldom do they have the imagination equal to the task.
Anais Nin
Sunday Quote: Begin again
If the angel deigns to reappear
It is because you have persuaded him
not with tears but with your humble decision always to begin again
Rainer Maria Rilke
photo mark voorendt
Trust
When we get our spiritual house in order, we’ll be dead. This goes on.
You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness.
Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you.
It is trust, not certainty.
Flannery O’Connor, American Author, 1925 – 1964, A Prayer Journal.
photo chi king
At the door
In practicing equanimity, we train in widening our circle of understanding and compassion to include the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. It is more a matter of being fully engaged with whatever comes to our door. We could call it being completely alive. Training in equanimity requires that we leave behind some baggage: the comfort of rejecting whole parts of our experience, for example and the security of welcoming only what is pleasant. The courage to continue with this unfolding process comes from self-compassion and from giving ourselves plenty of time. If we continue to practice this way over the months and years, we will feel our hearts and minds grow bigger. When people ask me how long this will take, I say, “At least until you die.”
Pema Chodron, The places that scare you
