It is blossom season in Japan and in gardens here. They are often used as a metaphor for human existence – beautiful but short lived – a reminder that life needs to be celebrated yet always contains an element of impermanence.
You ask me why I dwell in these green mountains;
I smile and am silent, for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down the stream and goes into the unknown,
I live in a world apart that is not of men.
Li Po, 701-762, Green Mountain
The beginning of the season of Ramadam
What actions are most excellent?
To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured.
That person is the most beloved, who does most good to God’s creatures
From the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad in the Sahih al-Bukhari
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment
Rumi
We have to be patient with ourselves. Over and over again we think we need to be somewhere else, and we must find the truth right here, right now; we must find our joy here, now. How seductive it is, the thought of tomorrow. We must find our understanding here. We must find it here; it is always here; this is where the grass is green.
John Tarrant Calling on the name of Avalokiteshvara
As we learn to tap into the interior of our body and inhabit it, we can sense a subtle current of aliveness that runs vertically through the core. It feels like a clear, luminous line of energy that runs upward close to the spine. It seems to well up from the ground like a pure spring and feels as if it radiates high above our head. If you imagine that your body is suspended in midair by a fine line located at the top of your head, you may get a sense of it.
I call it the current of life because it contains an essential aliveness and intelligence. The fewer filters we have – limiting beliefs, emotional reactions, and somatic contractions- the easier it is to sense this core animating luminosity.
Adyashanti
Our life journey contain many twists and turns and we all make mistakes along the way. And yet, Spring returns
I write,
erase,
rewrite.
Erase again, and then…
A poppy blooms.
Hokusai, 1760 – 1849, Japanese painter, printmaker
Mindfulbalance 