I had a similar encounter yesterday with swallows in Emo Park
There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life, just as it is, in all its incompleteness, yet, this is where Heaven starts.
See within yourself, if you can find it.
I walked through the field in front of the house, lots of swallows flying, everywhere! Some very near me. It was magical.
We are already one, yet we know it not.
Thomas Merton
In the course of [my] travels it became clear to me that tranquility and peace have nothing to do with the most beautiful places on earth or the most interesting experiences.
They are only to be found in one’s heart.
Ayya Khema, I Give you my life: The Autobiography of a Buddhist Nun
In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top – the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation – and the plants at the bottom.
But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.”
We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn – we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
We have a deep need to feel as if we are in control ….
We are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance —
and changes us, even if we do not reach it, into something else.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Eventually you will see that the real cause of problems is not life itself.
It’s the commotion the mind makes about life that really causes the problems.
Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul
To let go does not mean to get rid of.
To let go means to let be.
When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own
Jack Kornfield
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