If you do not trust yourself completely, you will just hurriedly go along with whatever happens in all situations. You cannot be independent: all these myriad situations cause you to undergo changes.
If you were able to put a stop to the mentality in which every thought is running after something, then you would be no different from a Zen master or a Buddha.
Lin-chi Yixuan, died 866, founder of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism
The great lesson from the true mystics, from the zen monks, from the humanistic and transpersonal psychologists, is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s own back yard. This lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.
Abraham Maslow
In the forest or by the sea, the learning is the same…
My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.
The sun is shining and I am mending my robe;
When the moon comes out I will read Buddhist poems.
I have nothing to report my friends.
If you want to find meaning,
stop chasing after so many things.
Ryokan 1758–1831, Zen Buddhist monk and hermit
A day at the sea…
We cannot enjoy life if we spend our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.
If we’re afraid all the time, we miss out on the wonderful fact that we’re alive and can be happy right now
Thich Nhat Hahn
An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: To love a genuine love.
The feet: To chase after it.
Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.
A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed.
Rumi, Night and Sleep
Incredibly warm, sunny weather here this last week. A world bathed in warmth and life and love.
Look at the sunlight.…
You see it is near, yet if you follow it ….you can’t catch it in your hands. Then you say it’s far away and yet you see it right before your eyes. Follow it and you see that it escapes you; Run away from it and it follows you close. You can neither hold onto it, nor be finished with it.
From this you come to see what is the true nature of all things
and then understand: There is no need to be sad or worry about things.
Huang Po, died 850, Zen Buddhist master
Mindfulbalance 