Get out of the construction business!
Stop building bridges across the raging waters of samsaric existence, attempting to reach the “far shore,” nirvana.
Better to simply relax, at ease and carefree, in total naturalness, and just go with the primordial flow, however it occurs and happens.
And remember this: whether or not you go with the flow, it always goes with you.
Nyoshül Khenpo Rinpoche, 1932 – 1999 , Tibetan lama
What I know
I could put into a pack
as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it on one shoulder,
important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
to follow a thought quietly
to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.
But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing
in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.
If there’s a temple, I haven’t found it yet.
I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass and the weeds.
Mary Oliver, What Is There Beyond Knowing
Our path will always be strewn with broken branches and stones, yet even the obstacles in our path are part of the path. They make it real. We are not angels and the hard edges of the physical world offer a resistance that, if they do not break us first, can temper the soul and open it to another world, which is nowhere if not here .
This life is a “vale of Soul-making” Keats says. When we see it that way, being lost is not only part of the journey; it is the royal way of becoming real, meaning that our outer knowing can be an accurate reflection of our inner knowing.
Roger Housden, Ten poems for Difficult Times
Treat every moment as your last.
It is not preparation for something else.
Shunryu Suzuki roshi, 1904 – 1971
Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind
In the primal sympathy which, having been, must ever be.
William Wordsworth, Splendour in the Grass
All Saints Day. We sometimes think that saints and bodhisattvas have the ability to float above everything.
Life does continually go up and down. People and situations are unpredictable and so is everything else.
Everybody knows the pain of getting what we don’t want: saints, sinners, winners, losers. I feel gratitude that someone saw the truth and pointed out that we don’t suffer this kind of pain because of our personal inability to get things right.
Pema Chodron
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