Tag: impermanence

Changing like the weather

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The weather has turned quite windy with heavy showers here in Ireland and they say that it is finally going to get colder. Indeed the leaves are turning colour and falling, although much later than we are accustomed to in this part of the world. It is a change from the last two years and people would be quite happy if the good weather continued for another few weeks. We have a natural tendency to try and hold on to,  and make permanent, things that are going well. However, as the old text reminds us, it is when we understand impermanence that our minds cease to be contentious and we stop fighting with how things are:

When you feel that you are making emotions and thoughts solid,

contemplate impermanence as a reminder that all is in flux.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

 

….separate

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At the end of the day, we discover that humility

– the strength to separate our sense of the meaning of life  from what we do –

is the only real answer to lifelong happiness.

Joan Chittister, Aspects of the Heart

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Accepting, letting go, insight

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In the deepest forms of insight we see that things change so quickly that we can’t hold onto anything,

and eventually the mind lets go of clinging.

Letting go brings equanimity. The greater the letting go, the deeper the equanimity.

In practice we work to expand the range of life experiences in which we are free.

U Pandita

photo brookie

….into the nature of things

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Eyes to see

In our meditation and insightful understanding of the way things are, we see that beauty, refinement, pleasure are impermanent conditions — as well as pain, misery and ugliness. If you really understand that, then you can enjoy and endure whatever happens to you. Actually, much of the lesson in life is learning to endure what we don’t like in ourselves and in the world around us; being able to be patient and kindly, and not make a scene over the imperfections in the sensory experience. We can adapt and endure and accept the changing characteristics of the sensory birth and death cycle by letting go and no longer attaching to it. When we free ourselves from identity with it, we experience our true nature, which is bright, clear, knowing; but is not a personal thing anymore, it is not ’me’ or ‘mine’.

Ajahn Sumedho, Mindfulness, the Path to the Deathless

Still here

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I was once told that certain spiritual masters in Tibet used to set their teacups upside down before they went to bed each night as a reminder that all life was impermanent. And then, when they awoke each morning, they turned their teacups right side up again with the happy thought, ‘I’m still here!’ This simple gesture was a wonderful reminder to celebrate every moment of the day.

Susan Jeffers, Embracing Uncertainty

Underneath change

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When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover within them something greater. We discover that within the very limitations of form, of our maleness and femaleness, of our parenthood and our childhood, of gravity on the earth and the changing of the seasons, is the freedom and harmony we have sought for so long. Our individual life is an expression of the whole mystery, and in it we can rest in the center of the movement, the center of all worlds

Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart