Tag: Life

Problems and inconveniences

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One of life’s best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.

Robert Fulghum, American author and Unitarian Minister, Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door

Necessary for beauty

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More wisdom from Dogen. I really like this saying: 

Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone,

how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

Dogen, Buddhist monk and philosopher, founder of the Soto school of Zen, 1200 – 1253,

Sunday Quote: All around

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Zen Master Dogen wrote, ‘The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading.’ 

I’m already in it.

We are all in it; we are made of it.

Susan Moon

An inner rhythm

Karl Duffy2 Comments

We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence..if you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself.  Your soul knows the geography of your destiny.  Your soul alone has the map of your future

John O’Donohue, Anam Chara

Two things

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Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone: –
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in our own.

Adam Lindsay Gordon, Australian poet, 1833- 1870

Looking for something to blame

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Drive all blames into one.

This is advice on how to work with your fellow beings. Everyone is looking for someone to blame and therefore aggression and neurosis keep expanding. Instead, pause and look at what’s happening with you. When you hold on so tightly to your view of what they did, you get hooked. Your own self-righteousness causes you to get all worked up and to suffer. So work on cooling that reactivity rather than escalating it.

Pema Chodron,  The Compassion Book Teachings for Awakening the Heart