I hadn’t noticed
till a death took me outside
and left me there
that grass lifts so quietly
to catch everything
we drop and we drop
everything.
Leonard Nathan, Kind, American Poet, 1924 – 2007
photo jenny downing
Tag: Life
Tolerance for uncertainty
There is a deep-seated tendency, it’s almost a compulsion, to distract ourselves, even when we’re not consciously feeling uncomfortable. There’s a background hum of edginess, boredom, restlessness. As I’ve said, during my time in retreat where there were almost no distractions, even there I experienced this deep uneasiness.…..We feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing…Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty
Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap
photo david brown
Nothing to lean on
The moment that Teijitsu, 18th century abbess of Hakujuan, near Eiheiji, Japan, learned to let go.
She saw that all phenomena arose, abided, and fell away. She saw that even knowing this arose, abided, and fell away. Then she knew there was nothing more than this, no ground, nothing to lean on, stronger than the cane she held. Nothing to lean upon at all, and no one leaning… And she opened the clenched fist in her mind and let go, and fell, into the midst of everything.
Sallie Tisdale, The Women of the Way: Discovering 2,500 years of Buddhist Wisdom
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall patiently, to trust our heaviness
Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.
Rilke, Book of Hours, II, 16
Training the mind
Nothing in the whole universe is comparable to the mind or can take its place. Everything is mind-made. Yet we all take our minds for granted, which is another absurdity. No one takes the body for granted. When the body gets sick, we quickly run to the doctor. When the body gets hungry, we quickly feed it. When the body gets tired, we quickly rest it. But what about the mind? Only the meditator looks after the mind. Looking after the mind is essential if life is to grow in depth and vision. Otherwise life stays two-dimensional. Most lives are lived in the realities of yesterday and tomorrow, good and bad, “I like it” and “I don’t like it,” “I’ll have it” and “I won’t have it,” “this is mine and this is yours.” Only when the mind is trained can we see other dimensions.
Ayya Khema, Being Nothing, Going Nowhere
photo honza groh
Sunday Quote: Every day as something new
Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior
that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
Abba Poemen (c. 340–450) was an Egyptian monk and one of the early Desert Fathers
Hold everything lightly
From the beginning
the flying birds have left
no footprints on the blue sky
Musō Soseki, Zen Buddhist Monk, calligraphy artist, poem writer, and garden designer, 1275 – 1351
photo wing chi poon
