Tag: Joy

Thanksgiving : We start by simply noticing

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Developing an ongoing habit of gratitude starts by taking the time to be with ourselves and to notice the beauty that is all around us:

Do we need to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it. Each second, each minute of our lives can be like this. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, even the sensation of our breathing. We don’t need to go to China to enjoy the blue sky. We don’t have to travel into the future to enjoy our breathing. We can be in touch with these things right now. It would be a pity if we are only aware of suffering.

We are so busy we hardly have time to look at the people we love, even in our own household, and to look at ourselves. Society is organized in a way that even when we have some leisure time, we don’t know how to use it to get back in touch with ourselves. We have millions of ways to lose this precious time – we turn on the TV or pick up the telephone, or start the car and go somewhere. We are not used to being with ourselves, and we act as if we don’t like ourselves and are trying to escape from ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Peace is every step

The winds in the trees, the sound of the stream

Karl Duffy1 Comment

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace that is “heard” when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say when there is no hearer? There is then a deeper silence: the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.

Thomas Merton, Preface to Japanese translation of Thoughts in Solitude

Sunday Quote: Being quiet

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Silence is God’s first language;

Everything else is a poor translation.

In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still.

Thomas Keating, Cistercian Monk and writer on Centering Prayer

Fully here, now

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It is not easy to be fully in the moment, every moment. What we notice is that we have a host of  thoughts,  ideas,  expectations, preconceptions, hopes and fears working as a filter between us and the moment  – or the person – that stands before us. The ability to be right-here-now is what we practice each day; the capacity to choose between the world in our heads or the real world before us. It is true that we rarely see the world, or another person, as they actually are, but we see them as we are in that moment. So in order to be right here with whatever is going on we need, in one sense, to empty ourselves, to create space. The best way to do that is to pause and focus your attention before beginning something, such as a new task,  or a meeting,  or indeed, a conversation. Take a few conscious breaths today before you begin something, to allow a gap to open and the mind to relax enough in order to have the  space to welcome.

If my eye is to receive an image, it must be free from all other images; for if it already has so much as one, it cannot see another, nor can the ear hear a sound if it be occupied with one already. Any power of receiving must first be empty before it can receive anything.

John Tauler, 14th Century German mystic and preacher.

A simple truth to remember today

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The quality of our experience,

Moment by moment,

Will determine the quality of our lives

Matthieu Ricard

A pilgrimage to our own life

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Since everything is sacred, staying close to what is sacred is a matter of presence and attention more than travel to some secret place. In essence, staying close is a pilgrimage to the heart of where we are. Since it is we who lose our directness of living, our task is often to restore that freshness of being alive….How do we stray on and off the path of what matters? How do we befriend the life of obstacles? How do we find a home between suffering and loving the world? How do help each other respond to the invitation to grow?

Mark Nepo