In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves:
the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
photo Karin Beate Nøsterud/norden.org
Tag: impermanence
Withdrawing permission
In standing still and receiving life with all its adversity and sorrow, you have withdrawn your permission for suffering to define your life. You have also withdrawn your consent to living in fear. Something profound happens in your heart when you turn with kindness toward all the circumstances of pain which you have previously repressed, dismissed or fled from. There is a softening, an opening, a deepening capacity and willingness to understand sorrow and its cause.
Christine Feldman, Compassion
photo shaun ferguson
The wrens nest
Wrens
make their nests of fancy threads
and string ends, animals
abandon all their money each year.
What is it that men and women leave?
Harder than wren’s doing, they have
to abandon their longing for the perfect.
The inner nest not made by instinct
will never be quite round,
and each has to enter the nest
made by the other imperfect bird.
Robert Bly, from Eating the Honey of Words
photo sylvain haye
Staying fluid
When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine many things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are fixed. However, if you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that there is nothing at all that has an unchanging self.
Dogen
Sunday Quote: Step by step
If the path before you is clear,
you’re probably on someone else’s
Joseph Campbell
photo gthills
Slow time
I went for a walk yesterday, but being Ireland, it started to rain and I had to abandon my plans. The day before had been so warm and bright…At times like this we can get irritated, as what “should” have happened gets disrupted. We rush on to the next moment, not noticing what is actually in front of us. We want reality to correspond to what we think should be going on, and do not go slow enough to notice what actually is:
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
John O’Donohue, A Blessing for One who is Exhausted.
photo adrian benko
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