The Dzogchen tradition likes to use metaphors for non-grasping – effortless – awareness to help us recognize the “vast expanse” of our “natural mind”
Rest loosely,
like a bundle of straw untied.
No tightness, no goal
– just this.
Nyoshul Khenpo Jamyang Dorje, Natural Great Perfection: Dzogchen Teachings and Vajra Songs
True joy does not come from having or receiving,
but from being… where all delight begins and ends.
Meister Eckhart, Sermon 52, On Detachment
The bluebells in Emo woods are just beginning to wilt. A brief week of beauty shortly to be gone for this year. The Japanese have a word for this bittersweet awareness of the impermanence of beauty and life – 物の哀れ mono no aware – often observed when the cheery blossoms bloom and evoke both joy and melancholy, reminding us of life’s transience. Every encounter is unique and will never happen again.
If we were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino,
never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama,
but lingered on forever in this world,
how things would lose their power to move us!
The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.
Yoshida Kenkō, 1283–1350, Japanese author and Buddhist monk, Essays in Idleness
Psychoanalysis, at its best, doesn’t give us answers but loosens the grip of the questions we’re obsessed with.
Sometimes the most liberating thing is to realize that we don’t need to know why we are the way we are –
we just need to live more freely with the uncertainty.
Adam Phillips, British psychoanalytic psychotherapist and essayist, Going Sane
On the occasion of the funeral of Pope Francis, an example of leadership as service, of simplicity in the face of a world of excess and a worldview in contrast to what has taken centre stage these last few months and years.
The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty. … When we go out to the margins, to the suffering, we discover something new: the joy of service.
Pope Francis, Homily 2015, On Serving the poor
Simplicity does not mean poverty or austerity. It is the conscious choice to reduce the superfluous in order to focus on the essential – what truly matters in life.
The more we clutter our lives with distractions, the less space we have for genuine contentment. Happiness thrives in simplicity, in moments of quiet presence rather than in the relentless pursuit of more.
Matthieu Ricard Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill
Life was unfolding in spite of me, not because of me. The more I leaned back and trusted, the more life took care of itself.
The key is to stop fighting. Lean back , let go and let life flow through you.
When you do, you will see that life knows what it’s doing
Michael Singer, The Surrender Experiment
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