We gain peace of mind when we recognize that, in this moment, nothing is actually missing. The sacred is not elsewhere.
Rice in the bowl
Water in the bucket
Zen koan response by Yumen when asked what is fully awakened awareness
Try to be, only to be. The all-important word is ‘try’. Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality, with its addictions and obsessions. Don’t ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed.
What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are, now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of success
Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT.
Follow anything in its act of being – a snowflake falling, ice melting, a loved one waking – and we are ushered into the ongoing moment of the beginning, the quiet instant from which each breath starts.
What makes THIS moment so crucial is that it continually releases the freshness of living. The key to finding this moment and all its freshness, again and again, is slowing down. When we find ourselves stalled in our very serious and ambitious plans, we are often being asked to re-find the beginning of time.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
People who practice mindfulness find that they dont have to trust the narrative self,
that it has lost its hold over them as the primary reference of truth and reality.
It’s such a sweet thing.
To go from having been habitually convinced by this narrative self, to no longer being convinced by it, is a huge shift.
Henry Shukman