Holding our concepts and views about ourselves lightly:
Without abiding anywhere,
let the mind come forth
The Diamond Sutra
Sunday Quote: Non-abiding
Tag: impermanence
The heaven of the grass
What I know
I could put into a pack
as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it on one shoulder,
important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
to follow a thought quietly
to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.
But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing
in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.
If there’s a temple, I haven’t found it yet.
I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass and the weeds.
Mary Oliver, What Is There Beyond Knowing
Valuing simplicity
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness
Having glimpsed the state of perfect peace,
Let them be able and honest,
Upright and gentle in speech, humble and not proud
Contented and easy to satisfy,
Not burdened in their duties, and simple in living.
Peaceful and calm, wise and skilful,
not proud or demanding in nature.
The Metta Sutta
Every moment
Treat every moment as your last.
It is not preparation for something else.
Shunryu Suzuki roshi, 1904 – 1971
Sunday Quote: Change
Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind
In the primal sympathy which, having been, must ever be.
William Wordsworth, Splendour in the Grass
A slow nourishing
I thought of happiness how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day,
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work,
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.
So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours,
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone.
May Sarton, The work of Happiness [extract]
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