Holiness is reached not through effort or will, but by stopping; by an inward coming to rest; a place from which we can embody the mid winter spirit of our days, a radical, inhabited simplicity, where we live in a kind of ongoing surprise and with some wonder and appreciation, flawed and far from perfection, but inhabiting the still center of a beautiful, peripheral giftedness.
David Whyte, Finding the Holy in the Holidays
When the uncertainty of the current situation leads us to feel uprooted and we find our minds pulled in all directions by the latest news:
Settle the self on the self
and let your life force blossom
Blanche Hartman, Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart
Most people view themselves as waves and forget that they are also water. They are used to living in the realm of birth and death, and they forget about the realm of no birth and no death. Just as a wave lives the life of water, so, too, do we live the life of no birth and no death
Thich Nhat Hanh
Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.
Pema Chodron
Living without contention, we are well-rooted in the earth. Zen poets say we become a mature bamboo – steady at the base, flexible in strong winds, and responsive to the movement of life. The strength of non-contentiousness brings patience and trust. The poet Rilke reminds us,
“Being fully alive means not numbering or counting,
but ripening like a tree which doesn’t force its sap and stands confidently in the storms of winter
not afraid that summer might not come.
It does come. It always comes.”
Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart
Everything is changing, including you.
That is an actual fact you can see.
This is not something you will know after reading many books.
So if you have a lot of suffering in your everyday life,
you will actually feel the most important teaching of Buddhism:
that everything changes, and there is nothing to stick to.
from the great Shunryu Suzuki roshi
