Sunday Quote: Wasting this moment

You are fooled by your mind

into believing that there is tomorrow,

so you may waste today

Ishin Yoshimoto, 1916 – 1988) Japanese Buddhist priest, founder of the Naikan meditation method

parts of holiness

I don’t know who God is exactly. But I’ll tell you this. I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.

Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say, and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water. And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying. Said the river I am part of holiness. And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.

Mary Oliver

abstractions

Anicca [impermanence] is very good for helping us break out of our sense of time. Time is an abstraction. We create it as a linear fund, something that moves forward.

But contemplate that. How long has this week been? Ten days? Some said that yesterday felt like 48 hours. And yet, whats ten seconds of pain? How long is a shower? How long is a cold shower?

Time then is a measure of desire – desire for continuity, desire for a certain outcome. It paralyzes us into expectation and anticipation or dread and worry. We skip over the present moment and get lost in something we imagine as out there in the virtual reality we call the future. But in the purest sense there isn’t any future. We are only ever here

Ajahn Sucitto, What you Take Home with You

Let go rather than forcing

Turn within

and drop off everything completely

and realization will occur.

Silently dwell in the self, in true suchness, abandoning conditioning. 

Open-minded and bright, simply penetrate and drop off everything.

Hongzhi Zhengjue, 1091–1157 Chan Buddhist monk, Practice Instructions

I can be happy

I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude, and not on external circumstances.

and that I can live happily in the present moment

simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy

Thich Nhat Hanh

Unseen

There is always something coming to birth

Even when we don’t desire it,
God is ripening.

Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 16