You often say “I would give, but only to the deserving” . The trees in the orchard say not so, nor the flocks in the pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Kahlil Gibran
Tag: heart
The world is complex – deal with it
It is through the messiness of our own individual histories – and the complexity of the world with all its divisions and differences of opinion – that we come to a full contentment in our lives, not by running away or denying parts of ourselves or what has happened in the past:
The way through the world
is more difficult to find
than the way beyond it
Wallace Stevens
Facing our past …..
A central truth of practice is that in order to come to the present, we must go through the past. This does not mean we have to relive or analyse our childhood, but it does mean that when our attention steadies itself in the here and now, we will be met with the residue of our past conditioning. Awakening means exposing and investigating areas of this past conditioning where the sense-of-self remains identified within a pattern, thought or emotion.
Rodney Smith, Stepping out of Self Deception.
The paradox is indeed that new life is born out of the pains of the old.
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out.
Facing our pain
Some of us have a hard time believing that we are actually able to face our own pain. We have convinced ourselves that our pain is too deep, too frightening, something to avoid at all costs. Yet if we finally allow ourselves to feel the depth of that sadness and gently let it break our hearts, we may come to feel a great freedom, a genuine sense of release and peace, because we have finally stopped running away from ourselves and from the pain that lives within us.
Wayne Muller, Legacy of the Heart
Remember this today
No matter what the situation
we are responsible for our own mind states
Joseph Goldstein
Opening to the soul in ordinary life
The three days of the Easter Festival contain a number of beautiful rituals which have been celebrated by human beings for thousands of years. These rituals touch of the big themes of human life – loss and death, betrayal and loyalty, meaning and love – and do so in a way that allow us ways to share significant emotions with others. The city of Geneva was quiet this morning, as it has been the last few days. It is good to have seasons and rhythms in our lives, periods of less activity with time to celebrate with family and friends. These celebrations can become familiar rituals in our lives – they bring us together and allow us to connect, and through connection find support and meaning. They open us up to something which is beyond the rush of each day and the limitations of work:
Ritual maintains the world’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection and care. As in a dream a small object may assume a significant meaning, so in a life that is animated with ritual there are no insignificant things. When traditional cultures carve elaborate faces and bodies on their chairs and tools, they are acknowledging the soul in ordinary things, as well as the fact that simple work is also ritual. When we stamp out our mass-made products with functionality blazoned on them but no sign of imagination, we are denying ritual a role in ordinary affairs. We are chasing away the soul that could animate our lives.
Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul
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