I have noticed that folks are generally as happy
as they make up their minds to be
Abraham Lincoln
Tag: heart
Always them
1. People say:
“They don’t do this, they don’t do that,
they ought to do this, they ought to do that.”
2. Always “They” and never “I”.
Peter Maurin, Founder, Catholic Worker Movement, They and We
Have you ever noticed that when you get on the highway at rush hour that it is everyone else who is the traffic, never you?
Ajahn Armaro.
Our troubles teach us compassion
Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.
Rachel Naomi Remen
Staying present with the physical experience
If you remember nothing else, always remember this: we don’t have to feel any particular way. We don’t have to have special experiences, nor do we have to be any particular way. With whatever arises, whether it’s pleasing or not, try to remember that all we can do is experience and work with whatever our life is right now. No matter what life is and no matter how we feel about it, all that matters in practice is whether we can honestly acknowledge what is going on, and then stay present with the physical experience of that moment.
Ezra Bayda.
Being spacious
Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature.
Sogyal Rinpoche
What being silent means
Being silent for me doesn’t require being in a quiet place, and it doesn’t mean not saying words. It means “receiving in a balanced, noncombative way what is happening”. With or without words, the hope of my heart is that I will be able to relax and acknowledge the truth of my situation with compassion.
Sylvia Boorstein, That’s funny, you don’t look Buddhist
Mindfulbalance 