The first day of Spring in the Celtic Calendar, the important feast of Imbolc, halfway between solstices, with themes of light and fertility, hidden seeds and new life.
Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown across the garden,
free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise.
Rumi
Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
Pema Chodron
When Zen Master Joshu was a young monk he asked his teacher Nansen, “What is the Way?” His teacher replied “Your Ordinary Mind is the Way”. By “ordinary” Nansen meant the mind Joshu already had; he didn’t need to turn it, or himself, into something else. He didn’t need to put, as the Zen saying goes, another head on top of the one he already had.
Unfortunately, these days, when we hear the word ordinary, we are inclined to think it means “average or typical” or even “mediocre”. We contrast ordinary with special, and decide, given the choice, we rather be special. But our practice wont make us special; it will keep bringing us back to who we already are.
Barry Magid, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness
Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.
Haruki Murakami
After the cold and the storms, bright Spring-like days in Ireland for the weekend.
And if you missed a day, there was always the next,
and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,
the hills weren’t going anywhere,
the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,
the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit.
Louise Gluck, Sunrise [extract]
It is hard to believe that the practice can be reduced to something so simple, paying direct attention to the present moment – to this breath, this person, this walk, to this washing of the dishes. We imagine it should be something grander. It may be simple; however, it is not easy
One day a man asked Zen master Ikkyu, “Master, will you please write for me some pointers to the highest wisdom?”
Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word: “Attention.”
“Is that all?” asked the man. “Will you not add something more ?”
Ikkyu then wrote : “Attention. Attention. Attention.”
Mindfulbalance 