Suzuki Roshi once said about questioning our life, our purpose, “It’s like putting a horse on top of a horse and then climbing on and trying to ride. Riding a horse by itself is hard enough. Why add another horse? Then it’s impossible”
We add that extra horse when we constantly question ourselves rather than just live out our lives, and be who we are at every moment.
Natalie Goldberg, Long Quiet Highway.
Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind.
The real you is loving, joyful, and free.
The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.
Miguel Angel Ruiz
When filled with qi, the body is like a tree branch filled with sap; it can bend and flow with the breeze, but it does not snap or lose its connection with the root. On the other hand, a stiff, dead branch is easily broken. Thus the adage of Lao Zi, “Concentrate the qi and you will achieve the utmost suppleness…
Suppleness is the essence of life“
Kenneth S. Cohen, The Way of Qigong
In the West, many of us can live in physical comfort, yet, because we are continually being presented with more refined commodities or changing standards by which to measure ourselves, there is not much contentment.
People can become depressed if their bodies don’t match up to the current standards of beauty, or if their personality is not smart enough – whatever the current fashion is. So there can be a nervous feeling of inadequacy and insecurity which deprives us of a sense of trust in our innate worth as a human being.
So because of just this , its important that we sense and define ourselves as “being” apart from those currents, if only to get onto some firmer ground...what really helps is to be able to calm and collect the mind …How you attend creates the dwelling place of the mind.
Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma
Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or the future;
We are continually expecting the coming of some special hour when our life shall unfold itself in its full significance.
And we do not observe that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grains from a loosely fastened bag.
Alexander Elchaninov, 1881 – 1943, Russian Orthodox priest
A lovely image of the solid ground we strive for:
By effort and conscious awareness [Apramāda],
discipline and self-mastery,
a wise person makes for themselves
an island which no flood can overwhelm.
The Dhammapada, 2.25
Mindfulbalance 