Coming, going,
the waterbirds
don’t leave a trace,
don’t follow a path.
Dogen, On Non-Dependence of Mind
photo Thermos
Tag: impermanence
Sunday Quote: Control and non-control
A flower falls, even though we love it;
a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
Dogen
photo: pixie from he
Looking for solid ground
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
Letting go of black and white
When we train in letting go of thinking that anything — including ourselves — is either good or bad, we open our minds to practice with forgiveness and humor. And we practice opening to a compassionate space in which good/bad judgments can dissolve. We practice letting go of our idea of a “goal” and letting go of our concept of “progress,” because right there, in that process of letting go, is where our hearts open and soften — over and over again.
Pema Chodron
photo: pete
Not limiting
When you are identified on the level of “I am the body and I am my feelings, thoughts and memories”, you’re always limiting, binding yourself to unsatisfactory conditions. These conditions can never satisfy you, because they’re changing: when you try to find security and lasting happiness in things that are forever changing, you’re going to be terribly disappointed. You going to feel this… sense of lack, and we tend to take that as a very personal flaw: “There’s something wrong with me. What’s wrong with me that I should feel lonely, inadequate, incomplete, or unfulfilled?“
Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of SIlence
A tolerance for not knowing
John Keats, the great English Romantic poet, writing about the qualities needed for full openness to the infinite depth of the world and of the person:
When man is capable of being in uncertainties,
Mysteries, doubts,
without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
Letter to George and Tom Keats, December 1817
photo: heather
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