Simple mindfulness advice

A walk is just as good…

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having,

just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road,

without a thought on anything but on the ride you are taking.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scientific American, 1896

[or as I saw it written on a wall in Italy…”pedala senza pensare a nient’altro che alla strada che percorri”]

Sunday Quote: Darker days

Daylight saving time in Ireland and around Europe.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

David Whyte, Sweet Darkness

Abandon becoming

This holy life is lived for the abandonment of becoming.

The Buddha, Loka Sutta

The abandonment of becoming is often called “the lion’s roar,” the expression of utter freedom and utter majesty. It is so, as mystic poet David Whyte observes that “inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.”

May we recognize the condition of becoming every time it arises – noticing its need to be “the one who,” its need for the nametag, recognizing it as merely egoic hope for future contentment. Having seen where the nametag leads us – to a new “self,” a new birth, new suffering- surrender becomes a joy.

Simply being – with no need for becoming – becomes an ease and a refuge.

Kathleen Dowling Singh, Unbinding: The Grace beyond Self

Sunday Quote: Letting judgments go

The only way to reach the truth is to learn how to be immediate in your vision. 

Osho

Sunday Quote: Remember

Indeed you have a majestic, sublime nature.

Qur’an, Surah Qalam, Aya 4.

These words were firstly directly to Mohammad, the Prophet, but in the tradition are also addressed to each person who reads them

Capacity for delight

Whether success or failure: the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality.

The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

May Sarton