A habit is a sure cell of predictability; it can close you off from the unknown, the new, and the unexpected. You were sent to the earth to become a receiver of the unknown. From ancient times, these gifts were prepared for you; now they come towards you across eternal distances. Their destination is the altar of your heart.
John O Donohue, Eternal Echoes
We can only be where we are: Right here, right now.
Zen practice is to accept that place with calm.
We cannot always be master of the situation, but we can always be master of ourselves.
Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen 24/7: All Zen All the TIme
Every moment is an opportunity to come home…
Make an island of yourself,
make yourself your refuge;
there is no other refuge.
Digha Nikaya, 16
The creator of the universe loves circles:
time and space are circles, the day is a circle, the year is a circle, the earth is a circle.
But when creating and fashioning the human heart, the creator only created a half-circle, so that there is something ontologically unfinished in human nature.
John O’Donohue
In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable,
we finally learn that here in this life all symphonies must remain unfinished.
Karl Rahner, sj., Catholic theologian
Today try taking some time to explore the possibility of sitting with yourself as if you were your own best friend.
Dwelling in the awareness of the breath, allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go, experiment with the possibility of embracing yourself as you would embrace another person who is dear to you and needs to be held.
Saki Santorelli
We continually move in and out of wholeness and fragmentation, in and out of clarity and confusion, and in and out of a largeness of heart and smallness of mind. When whole and clear and large of heart, we seem to be carried along, part of something larger. When fragmented and confused and small of mind, we seem to be tossed about, lost in ways we don’t quite understand. And so we continually search for tools that will free us to be lifted by life’s currents and not battered by them.
One such tool is a frame of mind, an attitude by which we meet the world: it has to do with whether we are giving attention or getting attention. Giving attention steers us back to center, Giving attention is connective. On the other hand, getting attention is a form of drifting from center. If attention comes your way, well, enjoy, but cultivating and seeking it is paddling away from center. Getting attention is deceptively isolating. It ultimately leads to being seen but not held.
Mark Nepo.
Mindfulbalance 