It is not the thoughts that create problems for us.
It is our harboring them.
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Tag: Life
Staying where you are
If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid.
Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
Turning up for your life
You will never be able to experience everything.
So please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.
Camus
A small glimpse of abundance
Perhaps the real point of life is simply to wear us down until we have no choice but to start abandoning our defenses. We learn that the way things are is simply the way they are meant to be right now, and then, suddenly, at long last, we catch a glimpse of the abundance in the moment.
Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey, An Apprenticeship in Contentment
Anxiety
If you’re human, you experience anxiety. The choice is whether to experience anxiety in the service of neurosis or in the service of waking up….We can invest in denying the truth of our vulnerabilities, thereby gaining pseudo-security at the cost of chronic anxiety. Or we can commit to experiencing our vulnerabilities moment by moment, gaining confidence that we can work with whatever arises- anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, etc. Either way, there’s anxiety. Own the embodied intensity as a valid part of your life and be kind to this experience.
Bruce Tift, Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation
Not the form we expect
All life worth living is difficult, nobody promised us happiness;
it is not a commodity you have earned, or shall ever earn.
It is a by-product of brave living, and it never comes in the form we expect, or at the season we hoped for, or as the result of our planning for it.
Katherine Anne Porter 1890 – 1980, American journalist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist.
Mindfulbalance 