Often we run around busy, giving importance to this and that, and yet what is deepest in our heart remains there unchanged, like flowers within.
We have been sold a lifestyle,
when what our soul desired was life.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
The mountain slopes crawl with lumberjacks,
Axing everything in sight
Yet crimson flowers burn along the stream.
Chin-doba
Following on from yesterdays post…Issa’s poems are very simple and very beautiful
Simply trust:
Do not the petals flutter down,
Just like that?
Issa (1763-1828), Japanese Buddhist poet
photo: cogdogblog
The forest is peaceful, why aren’t you?
You hold on to things, causing your confusion.
Let nature teach you.
Hear the bird’s song, then let go.
Ajahn Chah
This exercise is called the four smiles exercise.
Basically all you do is take a moment, let your mouth soften into a smile, then expand that smile for each of the next three breaths. First, expanding it so you feel your whole mouth, not just your lips, but your whole inner mouth soften and rise into a smile. Your forehead, your throat, and you keep feeling that smile expand until you feel it in your heart. That literally takes four breaths and you’re feeling a lot more buoyant.
Tzivia Gover
A long weekend in Ireland. Time to switch off and nourish our deeper selves:
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.…
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly.
Live a three-dimensional life;
stay away from screens.
Wendell Berry, How to Be a poet
At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
Mindfulbalance 