[There is] a phrase in the Book of Equanimity: “A woven brocade contains all colors”
Birth, old age, illness and death, as well as happiness and misfortune, gain and loss, love and hate – all of these are important tools for weaving the brocade of human life. A brocade cannot be woven with the single color of happiness. Given time, place and occasion, everything “contains all colors”. It is in this way that the Pure Land, the Other Shore, is made manifest.
Shundo Aoyama, Zen Seeds
Unless we live all our lives in the torment of the contradictions, as C.G. Jung insists, then we’re not human. We can’t become whole. If you’re stuck, and you don’t know what to do, stuck between two opposites, and you allow them each to live within you, then a small transformation of the ego takes place. It becomes related to the Self instead of identifying with it.
Helen Luke, 1904 – 1995, Jungian Analyst and writer
Bring those spaces into your everyday life, as many as possible. When you get into your car, shut the door and be there for just half a minute. Breathe, feel the energy inside your body, look around at the sky, the trees. The mind might tell you, I don’t have time. But that’s the mind talking to you. Even the busiest person has time for 30 seconds of space.
Eckhart Tolle, in interview with Oprah Winfrey
Finally I am coming to the conclusion
that my highest ambition is to be what I already am.
Thomas Merton
When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen….
Steady yourself and see
That it is your own thinking
That darkens your world,
Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light.
Know that you are not alone,
And that this darkness has purpose
John O’Donohue, For Courage (extract)
When you find your place where you actually are, practice occurs....
When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs…
Here is the place; Here the way unfolds
Dogen, 1200 – 1253, Genjōkōan: Actualizaing the Fundamental Point
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