The basic root of happiness lies in our minds;
outer circumstances are nothing more than adverse or favourable
Matthieu Ricard
photo biswarup ganguley
Tag: Joy
A new day, a New week
All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
John O’Donohue, A Morning Offering
Picking flowers
This is as nice a description of moment-to-moment awareness that I have read in a while, from a non “meditation” source:
There’s actually no such thing as an adult. We never grow up. We’re not supposed to. We’re born and that’s it. We get bigger. We live through great storms. We get soaked to the bone. We realize we’re waterproof. We strive for calm. We discover what makes us feel good. We do those things over and over. We learn what doesn’t feel good. We avoid those things at all cost. Sometimes we come together: huge groups in agreement. Sometimes we clap and dance. Sometimes we look like a migration of birds. We need to remind ourselves — each other — that we’re mere breaths. Like every time you see the low, full moon. We keep on eating: chewing, pretending we know what’s going on. The secret is that we don’t. We don’t, and don’t, and don’t. Each day we’re infants: plucking flower petals, full of wonder.
Micah Ling, Bon Iver: Holocene
Going with the flow
A similar message to yesterday’s, on holding things lightly…
Long ago, a monk asked the old master:
“When hundreds, thousands or myriads of objects come all at once, what should be done?”
The Master replied “Don’t try to control them”
Dogen, 1200 – 1253
Thinking we make the moves
Maybe something to remember when something bothers us today, and we take it very seriously….
What is the difference
Between your experience of life
And that of a saint?
The saint knows that the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved has just made such a Fantastic Move
that the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”
Whereas, my dear,
I’m afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
Hafiz, Tripping Over Joy
Getting a glimpse in a moment
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
A famous Zen poem reads: “The old Pond. A frog jumps in. Plop” This is a wonderful description of bare attention. The poet, Basho, goes directly to the essence of his experience: the pond, frog, plop. We can say that in meditation we are developing “plop mind”. We are stripping away everything that is extraneous to our immediate experience and simply being present with what is happening. This is bare attention: direct, essential, non-interfering.
Joseph Goldstein, Bare Attention
photo Louis
Mindfulbalance 