In order to change our mode of action,
we must change the image of ourselves that we carry within us.
Moshe Feldenkreis
Tag: inspiration
…and make us stronger
See how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
Jane Hirshfield, For What Binds Us
photo Kanchelskis
The gift of life
A reminder to see each day as a gift to be celebrated:
God has given us the gift of life
It is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living fully
(Dieu nous a donné le vivre; c’est à nous de nous donner le bien vivre)
Voltaire, 1694–1778, French writer, philosopher and public activist, Œuvres complètes de Voltaire: melanges. commentaires sur corneille.
Surviving or celebrating?
Harley Swift Deer, a Native American teacher, says that each of us has a survival dance and a sacred dance, but the survival dance must come first. Our survival dance, a foundational component of self-reliance, is what we do for a living — our way of supporting ourselves physically and economically. For most people, this means a paid job. Everybody has to have a survival dance. Finding and creating one is our first task upon leaving our parents’ or guardians’ home.
Once you have your survival dance established, you can wander, inwardly and outwardly, searching for clues to your sacred dance, the work you were born to do. This work may have no relation to your job. Your sacred dance sparks your greatest fulfillment and extends your truest service to others. You know you’ve found it when there’s little else you’d rather be doing. Getting paid for it is superfluous. You would gladly pay others, if necessary, for the opportunity. Hence, the importance of self-reliance, not merely the economic kind implied by a survival dance but also of the social, psychological, and spiritual kind. To find your sacred dance, after all, you will need to take significant risks. You might need to move against the grain of your family and friends. Swift Deer says that once you discover your sacred dance and learn effective ways of embodying it, the world will support you in doing just that.
Bill Plotkin, SoulCraft
This is how it is 1: No here, no there, no liking and disliking
The 9th Century Zen Master Siubi was asked “What is the secret of Zen”
“Come back when there is no-one around and I shall tell you”
The inquirer returned and Siubi took him to a bamboo-grove, pointed to the bamboos and said
“See how long these are. See how short these are”
Suddenly the questioner had a flash of awakening. What did he see? He had a revelation of sheer existence. Where there is revelation, explanation becomes superfluous. Curiosity is dissolved in wonder.
John Welwood: Ordinary magic: Everyday life as Spiritual Path
Like being re-born each day
There is no ideal in observation.
When you have an ideal, you cease to observe,
you are then merely approximating the present to the idea,
and therefore there is duality, conflict,
and all the rest of it.
The mind has to be in the state when it can see, observe.
The experience of the observation
is really an astonishing state.
In that there is no duality.
The mind is simply —
aware
Jiddu Krisnamurti
Mindfulbalance 