Tag: impermanence

If you go back to the etymology of the word “threshold”, it comes from “threshing” which is to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into a more crucial and challenging and worthy fullness. There are huge thresholds in every life.

You know that, for example, if you are in the middle of life on a busy evening…..and you get a phone call that someone you love is suddenly dying, it takes just ten seconds to communicate that information. But when you put the phone down, you are already standing in a different world. Suddenly everything that seemed so important before is all gone, and now you are thinking of this.

So the given world that we think is there and the solid ground we are on is so tentative. And the threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit, and very often how we cross is the key thing

John O Donohue, quoted in the beautiful book, Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

A student once asked the spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti what his secret to peace and contentment was. He leaned over and whispered to the student “I don’t mind what happens”

Toni Bernhard, Self-Care in an Uncertain World

From the beginning all beings are Buddha.
It’s like water and ice – there is no ice without water – outside of us there is no Buddha.
It is sad that people ignore what’s near
And search for truth far away.
We are like someone surrounded by water
Crying out “I thirst!”
Like the son of a rich person going around poor on this earth we endlessly circle the Six Worlds.
The cause of our circling is ignorance.
From dark path to dark path we walk.
How can we be freed from the wheel of birth-and-death?

Hakuin’s Song of Zazen

Renunciation is “Just this is enough”. I really like that as a description of renunciation. Can you meet your life just as it is and say “Just this is enough”? Or are you always asking for something more? That’s where suffering comes in: “This isn’t enough. I need something more”. Then it always feels as if something is lacking. How can we meet our life as it is wholeheartedly, just like this? This is what our practice is: that is finding your home in the midst of homelessness, right here.

Zenkei Blanche Hartman, Seeds for a Boundless Life