If the angel deigns to come
it will be because you have convinced
her, not by tears but by your humble
resolve to be always beginning;
to be a beginner.
Rilke
Tag: heart
Quiet acts of kindness
Affection would not be affection, if it was loudly and frequently expressed . . . It lives with humble, un-dress, private things; soft slippers, old clothes, old jokes, the thump of a sleepy dog’s tail on the kitchen floor.
C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves,
However your day is
It is the imperative in the mind that this moment somehow be different, that causes suffering. Peace is possible, here and now, in the middle of the world, in the middle of a life, in the middle of a body, in the middle of however you are and however the world is. Change may or may not happen in a way that we like. But the mind has a capability of saying “It’s like this, and I can manage it”, without creating extra difficulty. There is a path to peace. The path is a doable, cultivable skill of awareness in the mind.
Sylvia Boorstein, Greet this moment as a Friend
The ordinary mystery
Ordinariness is a simple presence in this moment that allows the mystery of life to show itself. When Thoreau warns us to “beware of any activity that requires the purchase of new clothes” he reminds us that simplicity is the way we open to everyday wonder. While consciousness can create a variety of forms, ordinariness is interested in what is here and now. This is the ordinary mystery of breathing or of walking, the mystery of trees on our streets or of loving someone near to us. It is not based on attaining mystical states or extraordinary powers. It does not seek to become something special, but is emptying, listening.
Jack Kornfield, Bringing home the Dharma
The basic instructions
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Mary Oliver, Sometimes
A way of being with the joyful and the painful
If we practice mindfulness, we get in touch with the refreshing and joyful aspects of life in us and around us, the things we are not able to touch when we live in forgetfulness. Mindfulness makes things like our eyes, our heart, our non-toothache, the beautiful moon and the trees deeper and more beautiful. If we touch these wonderful things with mindfulness, they will reveal their full splendor.
[But also]..when we touch our pain with mindfulness, we will begin to transform it. When a baby is crying in the living room, his mother goes in right away to hold him tenderly in her arms. Because mother is made of love and tenderness, when she does that, love and tenderness penetrate the baby and, in only a few minutes, the baby will probably stop crying. Mindfulness is the mother who cares for your pain every time it begins to cry.
Thich Nhat Hahn, Touching Peace
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