Tag: Joy

Preparing for a new year

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As yesterday’s post said, people begin to look forward to the new year as an opportunity to start again. This is natural, but frequently does not lead to any real change, unless we understand the patterns within our own heart. Any lasting growth comes from  an understanding of our heart, with all its needs and hopes, its vulnerabilities and wisdom.  This means that we can drop all pretense and the need to blame others for what is lacking in our lives.  In many cases the desire for change around this time is based on comparing our lives with others and feeling we are lacking.  Instead of looking outward, we turn within and gently look forward – not based on fear of where we are now or criticism of this past year – but rather accepting who we are and opening to the new opportunities which will unfold.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

C.G. Jung

Looking forward

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One’s life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage

Anaïs Nin

In our darkest night

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Being Irish,  I always remember Newgrange on this day. It is an enormous burial tomb, built over 5000 years ago,  before Stonehenge and the Pyramids. It has with a small, dark inner chamber where the light penetrates just once a year at the dawn of this day,  to warm those who have died for a few moments.

The Ancient Celts knew intimately the passage of the sun and the sacredness of certain days. Today, the darkest and shortest day of the year, they ensured that the sun still touched where they were buried. For us too, no matter how dark our interior life becomes, or how deeply we feel buried,  light can still enter and illuminate. No matter how frozen we feel or how we shut ourselves off in fear of expoitation by others, we can be warmed and opened.

May hope and light,  in some way,  touch us all today.

Oak trees

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We try to be fully present in everything we do. We focus on just walking when we walk, and when listening to others we try to fully listen, not thinking ahead to the answer.  The vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn writes beautifully on giving whatever we are doing our full attention, taking care of one moment after another. Each event is important even if it is just washing a cup. In that way we are fully open to the happiness that is possible right now,  in each moment, if we just have eyes to see.

We learn this looking at nature around us and seeing how in silence each tree is perfectly complete in this moment. Nothing needs to be added. We are reminded of the old philopsophy maxim – actio sequitur esse- or action is based on being. Everything we do, all our happiness, is rooted in the heart. We touch into the heart every time we remember to be fully in each moment, not leaning onto the next, not always trying to be elsewhere or someone other than ourselves. Sitting practice strengthens this too: we do not try to feel anything particular, we drop all of our planning and additions and being in relationship  to just this moment, to just being.

An oak tree is an oak tree.  That is all it has to do.

If an oak tree is less than an oak tree, then we are all in trouble.

Thich Nhat Hahn

How to transform your work

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Even if you have a lot of work to do,
if you think of it as wonderful,
and if you feel it as wonderful,

it will transform into the energy of joy
and fire, instead of becoming a burden.

Tulku Thondup Rinpoche

Sunday Quote: Smile

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Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,

but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Thich Nhat Hahn