It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.
Ram Dass
Tag: impermanence
Lessons from foxes…
What is this message that wild animals bring, the message that seems to say everything and nothing? What is this message that is wordless, that is nothing more or less than the animals themselves- that the world is wild, that life is unpredictable in its goodness and its danger, that the world is larger than your imagination.
Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting lost
A motto for September
More from Chuang Tzu, just to start the month in a Taoist frame of mind:
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.
We just don’t know
Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions?
For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you
Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Being led
Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led — make of that what you will.
Wedndell Berry, Jayber Crow, A Novel
A lightness of touch
If we do our work with a focus on future results or only for those who are “deserving”, we are likely to start judging others and ourselves. Similarly, if we focus on ‘the way it should be’, we get frustrated when it does not turn out that way.
Staying in the present moment, holding things lightly and with generosity, changes things; it is joyful and promotes gratitude
The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection;
The water has no mind to retain their image.
Zen poem from the Zenrin-kushū, a 15th Century compilation of Zen writings
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