The heart is just the heart; thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. Let things be just as they are! Let form be just form, let sound be just sound, let thought be just thought….If we think and feel in this way, then there is detachment and separateness. Our thoughts and feelings will be on one side and our heart will be on the other. Just like oil and water – they are in the same bottle but they are separate.
Ajahn Chah, Food for the Heart
Praise and blame,
gain and loss,
fame and disrepute,
pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind.
To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.
The Buddha
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn;
that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning;
that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon,
and under every deep a lower deep opens.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles
Forget about life, forget about worrying about right and wrong.
Plunge into the unknown and the endless and find your place there.
Chuang Tzu, Chinese philosopher, 4th century BC
A day at the sea…
We cannot enjoy life if we spend our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.
If we’re afraid all the time, we miss out on the wonderful fact that we’re alive and can be happy right now
Thich Nhat Hahn
Incredibly warm, sunny weather here this last week. A world bathed in warmth and life and love.
Look at the sunlight.…
You see it is near, yet if you follow it ….you can’t catch it in your hands. Then you say it’s far away and yet you see it right before your eyes. Follow it and you see that it escapes you; Run away from it and it follows you close. You can neither hold onto it, nor be finished with it.
From this you come to see what is the true nature of all things
and then understand: There is no need to be sad or worry about things.
Huang Po, died 850, Zen Buddhist master
