Yeats’ quote could almost be written about meditation.
I love the way he says we can life a “fiercer” life by touching into calm, or seeing what is truly important, by simplifying things down to the essential.
We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.
W B Yeats
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time to time we get glimpses of what really matters in this life. Maybe when we spend some time in silence, or in being with others, or by the beauty of nature such as seeing the swans in a walk along the Lake today as echoed in this poem. If we allow those experiences inside us they let us see what makes life worth living, what brings us joy. We connect deeply and are filled with a sense of gratitude which stays with us forever. And even when they fly away and are out of sight, the wonder which they awoke stays in the heart.
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air – An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
Mary Oliver, The Swan
When we know how to listen deeply and how to breathe deeply in mindfulness
everything becomes clear and deep
Thich Nhat Hahn
We tend to overlook the ordinary. We are usually only aware of our breath when it’s abnormal, like if we have asthma or when we’ve been running hard. But [with mindfulness] we take our ordinary breath as the meditation object. We don’t try to make the breath long or short, or control it in any way, but to simply stay with the normal inhalation and exhalation. The breath is not something that we create or imagine; it is a natural process of our bodies that continues as long as life lasts, whether we concentrate on it or not. So it is an object that is always present; we can turn to it at any time. We don’t have to have any qualifications to watch our breath. We do not even need to be particularly intelligent — all we have to do is to be content with, and aware of, one inhalation and exhalation. Wisdom does not come from studying great theories and philosophies, but from observing the ordinary.
Ajahn Sumedho
Supposedly, today is another “Blue Monday”, when we are more prone to depression. Or maybe just an ordinary Monday, when we find it hard to get going, and notice more the difficulties when they arise. Or simply another day when we struggle with the aspects of our life that feel are stuck at this moment. One way or the other we have to deal with the ups and downs of life. Looking deeper and gaining insight into the overall nature of life may help.
The Buddha did not teach that life is constant misery, nor that you should expect to feel pain and unhappiness at all times. Rather, he proclaimed that suffering is an unavoidable reality of ordinary human existence that is to be known and responded to wisely. While you, like all beings, may try your hardest to experience only the good and avoid the bad, there is simply no way for any of us to escape unpleasant experiences. They are part of the dance, life being true to its own nature.
Philipp Moffitt, Dancing with Life
A clear, cold night. Stars in the night sky. They are there, as they have been for people for millions of years, seemingly unchanging, but actually moving and evolving, just as we are.
Surviving a loss and letting go is only half of the story. The other half is the secret belief that we will find, in one form or another, what we have lost. And it is that potential, shimmery as a star on a clear night that helps us survive.
Veronica Chambers
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