The body endures the storms of the present only,
the mind those of the past and future as well as the present.
Epicurus
Tag: inspiration
Roots in the past 1: Conditioning
As strange as it sounds, meditation may reveal that we are happier than we thought we were. We may discover that ancient conditioning rather than present circumstances is causing our dissatisfaction, and that this moment is quite sufficient or even wonderful, and we simply hadn’t noticed.
Wes Nisker
An Invitation to happiness
I love this time of year when the poppies grow alongside and inside the fields of wheat. With the wind of today and yesterday they sway, attracting our attention as we walk along the lanes. They are a splash of colour on a grey day. However they do more. They are, as Mary Oliver says, an invitation to happiness. And then it dawns on me that innumerable things each day are the same. Sure. like every one of us, I am tempted, from time to time, to “drown” in moments of darkness, but so many things – like these flowers – remind me that I am given opportunities each day to collect moments of colour, little miracles of light , that give me courage to go on and renew my joy. They invite me to not just live life, but to celebrate it.
The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while, the roughage
shines like a miracle as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold, black, curved blade from hooking forward—
of course loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light is an invitation
to happiness, and that happiness,
when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed in the river
of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do—
what can you do about it—
deep, blue night?
Mary Oliver, Poppies
Image by John Ecker | Pantheon Photography.
The beams of love
A huge change in the weather yesterday and today, and objectively it is much grayer here. However, had a number of meetings with people who reveal an inner light and a courage in the face of difficulties. It is love which brightens each day and the capacity to appreciate what we have, not wishing things be different.
We are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.
William Blake
How to truly live well
The art of living…is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past….on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Alan Watts, The Wisdon of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Uncertainty
Meditation in its simplest sense
The word ‘meditation’ can mean all kinds of things. It’s a word that includes any kind of mental practices, good or bad. But when I use this word, what I’m mainly using it for is that sense of centring, that sense of establishing, resting in the centre. The only way that one can really do that is not to try and think about it and analyse it; you have to trust in just a simple act of attention, of awareness. It’s so simple and so direct that our complicated minds get very confused….The more I pay attention and I’m aware, the more I recognise that in this still point there’s this resounding sound of silence.
Ajahn Sumedo
Mindfulbalance 