How can you follow the course of your life
if you do not let it flow
Lao Tzu quoted in Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Going with the current
Tag: Life
Be patient
In Tibetan Buddhism there’s a set of teachings for cultivating compassion called mind training, or lojong. One of the lojong teachings is, “Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.” This means if a painful situation occurs, be patient, and if a pleasant situation occurs, be patient.
This is an interesting point. Usually, we jump all the time; whether it’s pain or pleasure, we want resolution. So if we’re happy and something is great, we could also be patient then, and not fill up the space, going a million miles an hour —impulse shopping, impulse talking, impulse acting out.
Pema Chodron
Crossroads
When we find ourselves at a crossroads it is often better to stop, wait a while at the lights and check the map. After all, movement isn’t progress if we are heading in the wrong direction.
Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Every step today
If you look for the truth outside yourself
It gets further and further away
Today, walking alone, I meet him everywhere I step
He is the same as me, yet I am not him
Only if you understand it in this way
will you merge with the way things are.
Dongshan, 9th Century China, Chan Buddhist monk (Stephen Mitchell translation)
Sunday Quote: Always changing
This dewdrop world –
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet
Kobayashi Issa, 1763 – 1828, Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest, after the death of his daughter
Regrets
Most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.
Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
