Tag: Joy

A momentary crossing

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A full moon tonight, the last of the year, the Cold Moon, as we approach the shortest day of the year.

There are times when,
If the circumstances are just right,
Like a full moon,
A light rain,
Twilight, or fog,
There is a momentary crossing
From time to timelessness,
Form to Formless,
Blood and bone to earth and rock,
Past and future to present.
Where the atoms, the molecules of me
Forget to stop
From fusing into the earth and other places
Where I am not lost, but found,
Not part, but whole,
No longer longing for myself.

Parker Palmer

Rushing to do everything

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When people stop believing in an afterlife, everything depends on making the most of this life. And when people start believing in progress – in the idea that history is headed toward an ever more perfect future – they feel far more acutely the pain of their own little lifespan, which condemns them to missing out on almost all of that future. And so they try to quell their anxieties by cramming their lives with experience.

Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use it

An observing heart

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The noise of the wind and the rain continued all through yesterday and overnight, arising, passing away and returning.

Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning.

Everything is a gift.

Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging. A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it – that alone can be like waking up from a dream.

David Steindal-Rast

Seeking real treasure

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I have just three things to teach

Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures:

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,

you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,

you reconcile all beings in the world.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 67

Abundance and inner security

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A Zen master would call the True Self “the face we had before we were born.”… It is who you are before having done anything right or anything wrong, who you are before having thought about who you are. Thinking creates the false self, the ego self, the insecure self. The God-given contemplative mind, on the other hand, recognizes the God Self, the Christ Self, the True Self of abundance and deep inner security. We start with mere seeing; we end up with recognizing. 

Richard Rohr

Content

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The one who knows that enough is enough

will always have enough.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 46