Tag: heart

What are you waiting for?

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I only recently discovered this beautiful poem, on not living in the future, or waiting for some other moment to begin living fully. As Jon Kabat Zinn frequently says, nothing needs to be added to this moment to make it complete. And yet we often fall into the trap of thinking that sometime in the future, the conditions will come together, and we will start to fully live. As the poem says, there will be nothing in that future moment that is greater than now, than this day, when you stop reading this.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

William Stafford, You Reading this, Be Ready

Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com

Poisoning ourselves: Continually judging

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Feeling that we are continually falling short

is like a toxic gas we breathe,

making it difficult to be truly intimate with others

and at home in our body, mind and heart.

Tara Brach.

Sunday Quote: Dropping into a calm inside

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You who want knowledge,

Seek Oneness within

There you will find

the clear  mirror already waiting

Hadewijch II

Running from shadows

Karl Duffy1 Comment

I remember, when I was a very small child, often trying to jump into the middle of my shadow, but however hard I jumped I just landed on the shadow’s feet. And I would run after my shadow and then jump  – but where would I land? Just in the same place all over again. And this is what we do with our lives  – the things that we desire, it’s like running after shadows. You try to catch hold, reaching for the desire so close, and then you grasp it and then . . .and you haven’t really got it. Somehow it’s not what you expected, it’s different, not what you really wanted. And then to run from your shadow  – to be afraid, you keep turning around: ‘It’s still behind me, run faster, got to get away.’ When we stop and look though, we realize: ‘Well, it’s just my shadow.’ You can’t get away from it, but there’s nothing in it to be afraid of, it’s just a shadow. So when we stop and rest in the stillness of knowing, we know in our hearts that all we desire, all we fear, are just shadows. There is no substance there – nothing which can make us more complete and nothing which can threaten us. This is the real freedom of mind.

Ajahn Amaro, Real Freedom

……and not judging it

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As I have said, nothing that arises in our body and in our life happens outside of our journey, of our path, to full realization.  Everything that occurs needs to be welcomed with an attitude of acceptance and openness. No matter what happens, it is imperative that we do not judge it. Especially when we are going through very difficult and trying circumstances, one cannot repeat to oneself too often, “Do not judge it; do not judge it.” Only when we resist the temptation to judge what we are going through can the journey we need to make at this moment continue to unfold, and can we receive the needed development and transformation it may bring.

Reginald Ray, Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body.

Caring for what is troubling

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In matters of soul,

it is advisable never to compensate or to try to escape,

but instead to tend better

the very thing that is causing trouble.

Thomas Moore, Soul Mates