Tag: heart

Don’t pick them up

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One day a visitor to Ajahn Chah’s monastery said to him “You have so much going on here! You have dozens of monks and nuns under your guidance and now this big building project going on. And you have these 30 to 40 branch monasteries all around.

So many things to do. So many responsibilities….

It must be really hard work for you?“

In response, Ajahn Chah pointed to some nearby stones. “Do you think they are heavy?”

And the visitor replied, “Oh yes, really heavy”

To which Ajahn Chah replied, “Not if you don’t pick them up”

As told by Ajahn Amaro, Amaravarti podcast talk, Chapter 3.20 – Practicing Dharma

Big Mind

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From the great Suzuki Roshi. A lot to ponder here but I do like the idea of seeing all that happens as an unfolding of big mind:

Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind,

we do not care for any excessive joy.

So we have imperturbable composure.

Shunryu Suzuki Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, 

A juicy creative life

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It’s time to get serious about joy and fulfillment, work on our books, songs, dances, gardens. But perfectionism is always lurking nearby, like the demonic prowling lion in the Old Testament, waiting to pounce.

Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written, or you didn’t go swimming in those warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart.

Don’t let this happen.


 Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, Instructions on Writing and lIfe

Even though

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Piglet noticed that even

though he had a very small heart,

it could hold a rather

large amount of gratitude.

A.A. Milne

Healing

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As the Summer Solstice approaches….

Shamanic healing is not about fixing what has gone wrong.

It’s about growing a new body that heals, ages, and dies consciously.

Alberto Villoldo, 1949 -, Cuban psychologist and medical anthropologist, writer on the healing practices of the Amazon and the Andean shamans.

A motto for life

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More from the always inspiring Dogen. Very little can be added to this as we start another week…

In performing your duties maintain

joyful mind,

kind mind

and great mind

Dogen, 1200 – 1253, Buddhist monk, founder of the Soto school of Zen.