Another quote on accepting that there are reasons we cannot see and that we do not always have to be in control.
Prompted by the swallows returning yesterday :
Break open the cherry tree:
But where are the blossoms?
Wait for spring time and see how they bloom!
Ikkyu, Zen Buddhist monk and poet, 1394 – 1481
photo andrew bossi
Most of us are very good at bringing suffering upon ourselves, by taking something that is happening and fixating on it, creating a worry and letting it take root inside us. We are less good at simply letting things be, without wanting to fix the world according to our preferences:
Sitting quietly,
doing nothing,
Spring comes,
and the grass grows,
by itself.
Matsuo Bashō, 1644 – 1694
At Ryoan-ji in Kyoto there is a famous rock garden;
Wherever in it a person stands, one of the fifteen rocks cannot be seen.
The garden reminds that always something unknowable is present, just beyond what can be perceived or comprehended – and that something is as much part of the real as any other stone amid the raked gravel.
Jane Hirshfield
photo adriano
Much of life is ruined for us by a blanket or shroud of familiarity that descends between us and everything that matters. It dulls our senses and stops us appreciating everything, from the beauty of a sunset to our work and our friends. Children don’t suffer from habit, which is why they get excited by some very key but simple things — like puddles, jumping on the bed, sand, and fresh bread. But we adults get ineluctably spoiled, which is why we seek ever more powerful stimulants, like fame and love.
The trick …. is to recover the powers of appreciation of a child in adulthood, to strip the veil of habit and therefore to start to look upon daily life with a new and more grateful sensitivity.
Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life
Everyone, from time to time, experiences a challenge which makes life seem less safe, when things seem to tighten around them – a new job, relationship difficulties, facing an illness or being let down. Under these pressures we may stumble and even fall:
If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe,
I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me.
But this was shown:
that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.
Julian of Norwich
photo of memorial for Captain Scott South Pole, by Barneygumble
A quote for the beginning of the most important week in the Christian calendar:
The quieter you become
The more you can hear
Ram Dass
photo USFWS Mountain Prairie
