An observing heart

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

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

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

The one who knows that enough is enough

will always have enough.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 46

Smile

Why they always look so serious in Yoga? You make serious face like this, you scare away good energy. To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile.

Ketut Liyer, Balinese healer in Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

What do you want

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved,
to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver, written during his last, terminal, illness