We become just by performing just actions,
temperate by performing temperate actions,
brave by performing brave actions.
Aristotle
Tag: inspiration
Prolonging the gap
It does not really get explained any more simply than this:
One day when our master Jamyang Khyentse was watching a lama dance in front of the Palace Temple in Gangtok…he was chuckling at the antics of the … clown who provides light entertainment between dances. [A Student] Ana Pant kept pestering him, asking him again and again how to meditate, so this time when my master replied, it was in such a way as to let him know that he was telling him once and for all: “Look, it’s like this: When the past thought has ceased, and the future thought has not yet risen, isn’t there a gap?” “Yes” said Ana Pant. “Well, prolong it. That is meditation”.
Sogyal Rinpoche, Glimpse after Glimpse.
First – notice the “Comparing Mind”….
No one else has access to the world you carry around within yourself; you are its custodian and entrance. No one else can see the world the way you see it. No one else can feel your life the way you feel it. Thus it is impossible to ever compare two people because each stands on such different ground. When you compare yourself to others, you are inviting envy into your consciousness; it can be a dangerous and destructive guest.
John O Donoghue, Anam Chara
How to get peace of mind
A lot of the time much of our sense of inner worth is based on feelings related to others’ perceptions of us or their achievements. However, it is a basic tenet of mindfulness that happiness and peace of mind do not comes from things outside of us – when certain conditions are right – such as from a relationship, or what we possess or from our status in society – but rather comes from working with our mind and heart. It is ironically from not seeking some things that they are found:
Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache:
You won’t be able to find it.
But when your heart is ready,
peace will come looking for you.
Ajahn Chah
Time that nurtures
It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture the soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.
Thomas Moore
Natural Goodness
Our mind is often very self-critical. and replays the faults and shortcomings of our life, over and over again, like a broken record. To work with this, some meditation traditions emphasize that we focus instead on our deep underlying goodness – our true nature – and this focus allows a practical confidence to grow, which counteracts the critical voice. We can see this approach – which shifts the orientation in our life – in the following quotation from the great Zen teacher, Dogen. It helps balance the suggestion that our life would be better if only this or that happened, or indeed, if this or that had not happened to us. It also recalls what is said in the first week of the MBSR programme: No matter where you are in you life, or what difficulties you are going through, there is more right with you than wrong. It is grounded in the belief that everyone, in their very essence, is in one sense fully complete. There is a gentle confidence in this perspective – no one will fall short and all things will come together to achieve that. The practice is to come to know this deeply, by direct experience.
No creature ever falls short of its own completion.
Wherever it stands it does not fail to cover the ground
Dogen
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