Accept – then act
Whatever the present moment contains,
accept it as if you had chosen it
This will miraculously transform your whole life
Eckhart Tolle
photo MOs810
Tag: impermanence
Being thankful ……or closing our eyes
Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which garden we will tend … When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives, but when we are grateful for the abundance that is present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure – the illusion of wasteland falls away and we experience heaven on earth.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
photo takashi hososhima
Don’t hold on
[Our] knowing awareness gets lost when we cling to states of mind, because these are always in motion. We get pulled off balance by emotionally powered thoughts that demand that we follow them, fix them, get rid of them or worry about them. So we have to learn to undo the habit of reaching for, adopting or clinging. You can never satisfy a driven mind. A wise person is someone who can give up the ranting of the self to find a more natural tune; they can see the clamouring and the clutching, the fearing and the grasping, are unnecessary and not worth hosting.
Ajahn Sucitto, Parami
On change, choice, life and death
Two paths diverge in a wood….
You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.
You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.
You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…
Pablo Neruda from Dying Slowly
One step at a time
Ideals exist in the mind, with absolutes of right and wrong, which tend to give us a sense of striving, of not being good enough On the contrary, once we touch into the heart faculty, we connect more with the actual here and now and let go of the need to be prefect and certain. This brings about a deeper sense of balance and groundedness:
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how.
The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.
Agnes George de Mille, American dancer and Choreographer.
When things fall apart
Today is the Feast of St Martin, traditionally one of the big feasts which defined how we should work with time and the pace of our lives. It marked the start of winter and signalled a change of tempo. From tomorrow, a forty day period of preparation for Christmas began, a time which recommended that we should slow down, simplify our activity, reflect and see what really endures.
Perhaps this is fitting at the end of a tumultuous and frenetic week, which caused a lot of uncertainty in many people, and made us all examine our values, and the different solutions to being human which are being offered. We need to see what will withstand the passing of time, the passing of empires and changing human paradigms. It reminded us to connect with a deeper wisdom in order to learn how to deal with the frequently moving and disappointing nature of life:
Whether we’re conscious of it or not, the ground is always shifting. Nothing lasts, including us. … It’s not impermanence per se that is the cause of our suffering. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our effort to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness.
Pema Chodron, The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human
