In the web of life, you see the tentativeness of physical incarnation in this world. You come to realize the essential, ephemeral, and ungraspable experience. The river of life and its impermanence makes us see vastness. No moment can ever be repeated, and every moment is always new and then quickly replaced. We find our composure when we realize the ‘everlasting truth of everything changes.’ Life is precious and beautiful and unfathomable
Jack Kornfield.
It is now harder to pay attention to any one thing and there is more to pay attention to. Things come at us fast and furious, relentlessly. And almost all of it is man-made, it has thought behind it, and more often than not, an appeal to either our greed or our fears. These assaults on our nervous system continually stimulate and foster desire and agitation rather than contentedness and calmness. And above all, if we are not careful, they rob us of time, of our moments.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you’re wanting yourself to get better, you won’t. As long as you are oriented toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are. One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is the feeling that the present moment is not good enough. Instead of looking for fruition, we could just try to stay with our open heart and open mind. By entering into this kind of unconditional relationship with ourselves, we can begin to connect with the awake quality that we already have
Pema Chodron
Today is the Feast of Candlemas, which echoes themes found in many traditions around this time – new life, the first budding of plants, the return of the sun – light and warmth at the halfway point between the winter and the spring solstices.
We need constant reminders of the presence of light.
We are stars wrapped in skin,
The light you are seeking has always been within.
Rumi
To be human is much more than being born, getting an education, finding the right partner, and getting a pretty house on a nice street, just so that you can sleep, wake, work, go to bed, and do it all over again. It is an invitation to feel everything, to come into direct contact with the strange, beautiful, horrible, and often perfectly ordinary thing we call life…. There is devastation and hopelessness, and there is passion and holy commitment to creating a better future for everyone. There is me writing and you reading and the separation between us, and there is the unity we feel almost immediately when we are reminded that there is love.
Frank Ostaseski
Leucon, no one’s allowed to know his fate,
Not you, not me: don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be our last winter, it could be many
More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:
Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines
And forget about hope. Time goes running, even
As we talk.
Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.
Horace, 65 – 8 BC, Ode 1, 11
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