Do not worry if all the candles in the world flicker and die
we have the spark that starts the fire.
Rumi
The spark
Tag: heart
Two natured beings
Paraphrasing the words of Goethe’s Faust, “two selves dwell within our breast.”
One part of us is meant to live and function in the world we see around us — to eat, sleep, and produce our children, to answer the challenges of the natural and social world: in the words of Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes, to be born and die, to kill and to heal, to build and destroy, to weep and to laugh, get and lose, keep and cast away. This is human life “under the sun,” the world that we see and know and call real.
But God, the “something,” is above the sun, above all that our eyes can see and our mind can name, and there is a higher part of ourselves that senses that and calls to us.
We are two-natured beings. Such is the ancient teaching.
Jacob Needleman, 1934 – 2022, American Philosopher, Money and the Meaning of Life
Be happy
One of my meditation teachers used to end each of our interviews … and say to me, “Remember, Sylvia, be happy.” I actually for a long time thought it was a salutation, like “have a good day” or something that you say just in a routine kind of a way, and it took me a long time to realize that it was an instruction, “Be happy.”
Not only that it was an instruction but that it was a wisdom transmission – that happiness was a possibility. I understand that happiness to mean, the happiness of a mind that’s alert, that’s awake to the amazing potential of being a person in a life, with a mind that’s opened, that sees everything that’s going on, and realizes what an amazing possibility this is, and with a heart that’s open, the heart that responds naturally as hearts do, in compassion, in connection with friendliness, with love, with consolation when it needs to:
That that’s the happiness of life – a mind that’s awake, a heart that’s engaged... I want to say that really what I think about when my teacher said to me, “Be happy,” is be awake, be alert, stay in your life, stay present to it. She said at another point, “It’s your life, Sylvia, don’t miss it.” That’s been a very important thing.
Sylvia Boorstein’s keynote speech Stanford University 2005
Appreciate the moments
You should be experiencing the life that happening to you,
Not the one you wish was happening.
Don’t waste a moment of life trying to make other things happen;
Appreciate the moments you are given
Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul
Sunday Quote: What will engage you?
Therefore, tell me:
what will engage you?
What will open the dark fields of your mind,
like a lover
at first touching?
Mary Oliver, Flare
Play
Once a day, take a moment to remember your real life’s work and differentiate it from the games you play in order to achieve it.
Then, commit to playing wholeheartedly…
I’ve mentioned the idea of using the word play to replace the word work. If you have no way to feel playful doing your work, get different work.
This is not to say that play is easy. Real creativity, which is the essence of play, can feel absolutely grueling. But ultimately there is a sense of joy and meaning in having done it. The essential self doesn’t mind hard work. But it will reject meaningless work.
Martha Beck Blog, I Rest my Pace
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