Often in meditation we speak of letting go of something: let go of thoughts, let go of emotions, let go of pain. Sometimes that is not exactly the right phrase, because letting go suggests that you need to do something. A better phrase to work with is “Let it be”. Let it be. Everything comes and goes by itself. We do not have to do anything to make it come or to make it go, or to let go. We just have to let it be.
Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation
It’s helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing to whatever arises, without picking and choosing. It’s definitely not meant to repress anything, and it’s not intended to encourage grasping either… To the degree that we‘re willing to see our enmeshment or grasping and our repressing clearly, they begin to wear themselves out…. Up come all these thoughts, but rather than squelch them or obsess with them, we acknowledge them and let them fade.
Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty
Some people once brought a blind man to Jesus and asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ They all wanted to know why this terrible curse had fallen on this man. And Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.’ He told them not to look for why the suffering came but to listen for what the suffering could teach them. Jesus taught that our pain is not punishment, it is no one’s fault. When we seek to blame, we distract ourselves from an exquisite opportunity to pay attention, to see even in this pain a place of grace, a moment of spiritual promise and healing.
Wayne Muller, Legacy of the Heart
Awareness is your refuge:
Awareness of the changingness of feelings, of attitudes, of moods, of material change and emotional change: Stay with that, because it’s a refuge that is indestructible.
It’s not something that changes. It’s a refuge you can trust in.
This refuge is not something that you create. It’s not a creation. It’s not an ideal. It’s very practical and very simple, but easily overlooked or not noticed.
When you’re mindful, you’re beginning to notice,
it’s like this.
Ajahn Sumedho,
When there is sunshine, it just shines across the land and it doesn’t try to force the land to absorb its rays. The sun just shines. We too practice in a very non-violent, very loving way with our breathing. When you are sitting with a bent back you just recognise your back is bent and quite naturally your body adjusts itself to become a little straighter. There is no forcing. If you are agitated but you are mindful of this feeling of agitation you simply recognise, ‘I have irritation.’ You should not say, ‘Irritation is very bad, I have to get rid of my irritation.’ No, you just be aware of your irritation. If there is irritation you simply recognise you have irritation. You do not judge, you do not force, and you do not condemn them. You only look at your irritation with compassion. I go back to my body with non-violence, with care, with compassion.
When the sunshine falls on the vegetation, the vegetation itself becomes green. When your mindfulness is shining upon what is happening in you, then you do not need to force but you know right away and you smile with compassion to your irritation and then your irritation will disappear. You know that everything changes including your irritation. If you are aware then your irritation becomes weaker, but if you are not aware then the irritation can grow very fast turning into anger and stress, and other negative feelings. If you are aware, it will weaken naturally, because it is impermanent.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Now are the rough things smooth, and the smooth things stand in flickering slats, facing the slow tarnish of sun-fall.
Summer is over, or nearly.
And therefore the green is not green anymore but yellow, beige, russet, rust; all the darknesses are beginning to settle in.
And therefore why pray to permanence, why not pray to impermanence, to change, to – whatever comes next.
Willingness is next to godliness.
Mary Oliver, prose-poem
Mindfulbalance 