Blossoms in full bloom at the moment, but their beauty only lasts for about a week. In Japanese, the term used for passing beauty is 儚い (hakanai), meaning “fleeting” or “fragile”, reminding us to fully inhabit each moment without holding onto it
Better it is to live one day seeing the rise and fall of things
than to live as hundred years without ever seeing the rise and fall of things.
The Dhammapada, 8, 113
The wisdom that arises from mindfulness makes space for the sense of self to be and not to be.
Not believing any one these fleeting identities to be who we really are, we release being concerned about any of it. In fact, we sit back and watch the whole show like an amused grandmother, quietly watching over the antics of her grandchildren. This is the profound peace we are so busy searching for. It does not come from creating and perfecting our personality.
Freedom comes when we see through the machinations of “self” and cease to be bothered by or believe any of it.
Mark Coleman, From Suffering to Peace: The True Promise of Mindfulness
Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything.
that really isn’t you
so you can be who you were meant to be
in the first place.
Paulo Coelho
When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.
Tuli Kupferberg, 1923 – 2010, American counterculture poet and author.
A simple reminder for these Covid-19 times
In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.
Blaise Pascal
One way we need to work with the mind these days is to notice the beauty in the ordinary moments of each day…
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
R.S. Thomas, The Bright Field
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