Healing depends on listening with the inner ear – stopping the incessant blather, and listening. Fear keeps us chattering – fear that wells up from the past, fear of blurting out what we really fear, fear of future repercussions. It is our very fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present.
Marion Woodman, 1928 – 2018, Canadian author and analytical psychologist, The Pregnant Virgin
Without stepping out the door, one can know the world.
Without looking out of the window
One can see the way of heaven.
The further one goes
The less one knows.
Therefore:
The wise person knows without having to stir,
perceives without having to see,
Accomplishes without having to act.
Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, chapter 47
Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite.
It actually takes guts.
Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us,
we enter the warrior’s world.
Pema Chodron
Get yourself out of the way,
and let joy have more space.
Rumi
I often think of the way the Dakotah Indians responded to a small wrong. When, for example, a young person walked between an elder and the fire – an act of profound impoliteness in their culture – the young person said, simply, “Mistake”. It was an honest acknowledgement of an error of judgment, devoid of any self-recrimination or self-diminution. All present nodded in assent, and life went on.
How healthy such an attitude seems. We all commit mistakes in judgment and we all need forgiveness. If we had the option of making a simple acknowledgement of our mistake and then going on with affairs, how much clearer and gentler life would be. And how healthier would our own hearts be if we looked on the injuries caused us by others as simply the mistake of human beings who, like us, are struggling to get by in a complex and mysterious world.
Kent Nerburn, Make me an Instrument of Your Peace
We can feel the possibility of balance in our lives,
when we recognize that life is not in our control
Jack Kornfield
