Sometimes it takes a great sky
to find that
small, bright and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
David Whyte, The Journey
Tag: heart
The source of well being
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Matthew 6: 21
In general, the basic attitude that works best in meditation is to let go of how things should be, and address how things appear to be. Addressing what arises through an attention based on good-will, empathy and letting go helps to lead the mind from a good position, and that in itself can ease the mind out of a hindrance. When we really find value in good will and letting go, then there’s much less room for hindrances to breed. Regard the mind as a treasure to be guarded, valued and polished: with this attitude one gets to live with the most reliable source of well-being.
Ajahn Sucitto, Meditation
Times when we learn most
There comes a time when the bubble of ego is popped and you can’t get the ground back for an extended period of time. Those times, when you absolutely cannot get it back together, are the most rich and powerful times in our lives.
Pema Chodron
The experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego
Jung
Thoughts on a Windy Autumn day
Who hasn’t thought, “Take me with you,”
hearing the wind go by?
And finding himself left behind, resumed
his own true version of time
on earth, a seed fallen here to die
and be born a thing promised
in the one dream
every cell of him has dreamed headlong
since infancy, every common minute has served.
Born twice, he has two mothers, one who dies, and one
the mortar in which he’s tried. His double
nature cleaves his eye, splits his voice.
So if you hear him say, while he sits at the bed
of one mother, “Take me home,”
listen closer. To Life,
he says, “Keep me at heart.”
Li-Young Lee, American Poet, To Life
Harvesting
The secret of life is to let every segment of it produce its own yield at its own pace. Every period has something new to teach us: The harvest of youth is achievement; the harvest of middle age is perspective; the harvest of age is wisdom; the harvest of life is serenity.
Joan Chittister, In a High Spiritual Season
October dawns
The Irish word for October is Deireadh Fomhair, which means the “last harvesting” of the fruits of what we have planted earlier in the year. There is a rich crop of black berries on the hedgerows after the long Summer and mild Autumn here in Ireland. So a quote which I am fond of, and which resonates with some of the recent words on autumn, second half of life and integration:
There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another’s wounds. Lets remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness.
Henri Nouwen
photo elin
