A lot of us find it hard to extend real kindness towards ourselves. Our default position is that we are much more critical of ourselves – and how our life history has developed – than we are of others.
And if we forgive life for not being what we told it to be, or expected, or wished, or longed for it to be,
we forgive ourselves for not being what we might have been also.
And then we can be what we are, which is boundless
John Tarrant, The Zenosaurus Course in Koans
Now and then it is good
to pause in our pursuit of happiness
and simply be happy,
[De temps en temps il est bon de faire une pause dans notre quête du bonheur et simplement être heureux]
Guillaume Appolinaire, 1880 – 1918
The physical universe is basically playful. There is no necessity for it whatsoever. It isn’t going anywhere. That is to say, it doesn’t have some destination that it ought to arrive at. It is best understood by the analogy with music. Because music, as an art form is essentially playful. We say, “You play the piano” You don’t work the piano.
Why? Music differs from say, travel. When you travel you are trying to get somewhere. In music, though, one doesn’t make the end of the composition. The point of the composition. If that were so, the best conductors would be those who played fastest. And there would be composers who only wrote finales.… Same way with dancing. You don’t aim at a particular spot in the room because that’s where you will arrive. The whole point of the dancing is the dance.
If we thought of life by analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at that end, and the thing was to get to that thing at that end. Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you’re dead.
But we missed the point the whole way along.
It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.
Alan Watts
We don’t stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw
We often rush through a day – preoccupied with the practical things that need to get done – that we do not have time to celebrate:
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go, to take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward the territories of spirit
Where you will discover more of your hidden life,
And the urgencies that deserve to claim you
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
John O Donohue, For the Traveler
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