Time passing

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Everything comes down to time in the end – to the passing of time, to changing. Ever thought of that? Anything that makes you happy or sad, isn’t it all based on minutes going by? Isn’t happiness expecting something that time is going to bring you? Isn’t sadness wishing time back again? If only you could turn it back again, you think. If only you could change this or that, undo what you have done, if only you could roll the minutes the other way, for once.

Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim 

Sunday Quote: Joy

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Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.

Karl Barth

It better happen this way

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Every day, we give precedence to our mind’s thoughts over the reality unfolding before us. We regularly say things like, “It better not rain today because I’m going camping” or “I better get that raise because I really need the money.” Notice that these bold claims about what should and shouldn’t be happening are not based on scientific evidence; they’re based solely on personal preferences made up in our minds. Without realizing it, we do this with everything in our lives — it’s as though we actually believe that the world around us is supposed to manifest in accordance to our own likes and dislikes. If it doesn’t, surely something is very wrong. This is an extremely difficult way to live, and it is the reason we feel that we are always struggling with life.

Michael SInger, The Surrender Experiment

photo Irish Defense Forces

…No path

dune

Go forth on your path,
As it exists only through your walking

Saint Augustine, Sermon 169.

Sunday Quote: No map….

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You must give up the life you planned

in order to have the life that is waiting for you

Joseph Campbell

Arising and returning

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The “10,000 is things”expression for all that happens in a life, or in the world of our experience. They arise and pass away, continually rearranging themselves,  and we have to learn how to work with this reality:

The ten thousand things arise together;

In their arising is their return.

Now they flower, and flowering sink homeward, returning to the root.

The return to the root is peace.

Peace: to accept what must be

and to know what endures.

In that knowledge is wisdom

Lao Tzu