However great our conceptual knowledge and understanding might be,
in the face of real experience,
concepts are like flakes of snow fallen on a burning fire.
Zenkei Shibayama, 1894 – 1974, Japanese Rinzai Zen priest, head Roshi of Nanzenji Zen Monastery in Kyoto
We are the driven ones.
But the pressing on of time,
Takes us as small things
Into the everlasting.
All this rushing
Will soon be over;
For it is in lingering
That we receive insight.
All is in repose:
the darkness and the brightness,
the flower and the book.
Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus First Part, 22
Coming to the mid point of winter, short dark days
Life is uncertain, surprises are likely.
If you are ….in a dark place, you still have what really counts.
If you are in a predicament, there will be a gate.
John Tarrant, It Would Be a Pity to Waste A Good Crisis
Craving leads to suffering whenever we fail to see that what we crave won’t really provide us with the kind of lasting satisfaction or happiness that we are seeking. The nature of craving is not to be satisfied. It is about lack. When we get stuck in this place of lacking something that we believe will bring us happiness, then we can really suffer.
Walt Opie
Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They adapt. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.
Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty…. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it’s essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.
It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.
Katherine May, Wintering: How I Learned to Flourish When Life Became Frozen
Qualities to keep the heart open: Be as patient as the moss and as vulnerable as the oaks.
Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about
spiritual patience? Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.
Mary Oliver, Landscape (extract)
Mindfulbalance 