People sacrifice the present for the future.
But life is available only in the present.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Tag: inspiration
A day of rest
Silence is a very perilous part of life. It tells us what we are obsessing about. It reminds us of what we have not resolved within ourselves. It shows to us the underside of ourselves, from which there is no escape, which no amount of cosmetics can hide, that no amount of money or titles or power can possibly cure. Silence leaves us with only ourselves for company. Silence is, in other words, life’s greatest teacher.
Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life
Sunday Quote: Opening towards
You learn about a thing … by opening yourself wholeheartedly to it.
You learn about a thing by loving it.
Barbara McClintock, Nobel prize-winning geneticist
Silence in everyday life
Solitude is an elusive thing that needs to find us rather than us finding it. We tend to picture solitude in a naïve way as something that we can “soak ourselves in” as we would soak ourselves in a warm bath. We tend to picture solitude this way: We are busy, pressured, and tired. We finally have a chance to slip away for a weekend. We rent a cabin, complete with a fireplace, in a secluded woods. We pack some food, some wine, and some soft music and we resist packing any phones, iPads, or laptops. This is to be a quiet weekend, a time to drink wine by the fireplace and listen to the birds sing, a time of solitude.
But solitude cannot be so easily programmed. We can set up all the optimum conditions for it, but that is no guarantee we will find it. It has to find us, or, more accurately, a certain something inside of us has to be awake to its presence. Solitude is not something we turn on like a water faucet. It needs a body and mind slowed down enough to be attentive to the present moment. We are in solitude when, as Thomas Merton says, we fully taste the water we are drinking, feel the warmth of our blankets, and are restful enough to be content inside our own skin.
Ron Rolheiser, Longing for Solitude
Sunday Quote: Opening of eyes
Life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
David Whyte
Sunday Quote: On not always listening to our fears
Dance first, think later,
It’s the natural order.
Samuel Beckett
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