Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal.
The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive. Repeat that to yourself every morning: ‘I’ve arrived.’ That way you’ll find it much easier to stay in touch with each second of your day.
Paulo Coelho
Seeing beginnings and endings is a vital step in developing the understanding that nothing exists apart from interdependent, cause-and-effect relationships. To see the beginnings and endings is also, in my experience, a great support in difficult times. Early on, as I began to trust in the fiber of my being that nothing lasts, I became less afraid of pain. The fact that everything has an end comforted me. “One way or another,” I would say to myself, “this too will pass.” I was glad I saw that…the end of the day is the beginning of the night, and that the dead rose becomes compost for new growth.
Sad and wistful and lonesome are what human beings feel when they are parted from what they love. They are difficult emotions, but they aren’t problems. They become suffering when we resent them, or resist them, or pretend that they aren’t there. I know that when I struggle with the pain of any loss, the struggle preoccupies my mind and leaves no room for hope. When I recognize the pain I feel as the legitimate result of loss, I am respectful of its presence and kind to myself. My mind always relaxes when it is kind, and around the edges of the truth of whatever has ended, I see displays of what might be beginning.
Sylvia Boorstein
Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your judging and instead to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as “good” or “bad.” This would be a true stillness, a true liberation.
Meditation means cultivating a non-judging attitude toward what comes up in the mind, come what may.
Jon Kabat Zinn
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon
is to be back in Eden,
where doing nothing was not boring – it was peace.
Milan Kundera
Appreciative words are the most powerful force for good on the earth. George W. Crane
Most of us would not consider ourselves to be deliberately unkind. However, it is probably true that we miss many occasions each day to be more kind. We ourselves can probably remember occasions when we were hurt by others not doing something – not listening, not noticing when we did something, not being there when we needed them. Being kind does not always mean having to give beyond our strength. The Buddha spoke of making “offerings that cost nothing“, such as a compassionate eye, a smiling face, and loving words. So let us do the simple things, such as being present, or acknowledging what was done or saying words that are within our capacity to say, knowing that our heartfelt words can make such a difference in peoples lives.
Kindness in words creates confidence,
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu
Today is the Feast of All Saints. The easiest way to understand a saint – in the different world religions – is to see them as people who gave allowed themselves be surprised and consumed by love. They gave with their whole hearts, often not counting the cost.
Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.
Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.
You set out to find God,
but then you keep stopping for long periods at meanspitited roadhouses.
Don’t wait any longer…
Rumi
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