Four Rules For Life
Show up.
Pay attention.
Tell the truth.
Don’t be attached to the results.
Angeles Arrien, 1940 – April 24, 2014
Tag: Life
No road
Walker, your footsteps
are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road,
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea.
Antonio Machado, Proverbs and songs #29
photo arbget47j
As we go along
You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To “have” running water you must let go of it and let it run.
Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
photo Paul Glazzard
What you love
It is very important that you only do what you love to do.
You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live.
And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do.
Otherwise, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Sunday quote: Like the sun
If you want to be as clear and refreshing as
the breath of the morning breeze,
be like the sun – have nothing but warmth and light
for everyone.
Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir, 967 – 1049, Persian Sufi poet
photo fitri agung
Simply being there
We are either in the state of “having lived” or “will be living” — that’s how our mind functions. Often, our mind is dwelling in the past and we are always “sort of living” in the state of past memories. Our mind has never been free to live in the present: it’s always under the dictatorship of our memories of the past or dreams of the future. We have a long list of plans for how we will live in the future — how we will achieve this and that — and we invest our energy, time and effort in these dreams. As a result, we may actually achieve a certain number of our dreams, but when the future becomes the present, we don’t have the time or wisdom to experience it. We don’t have the space, the freedom, to enjoy the dreams that have come true in the present.
The whole purpose of mindfulness of mind is to bring us back to this tiny spot of the present, the momentary nature of our mind, and to experience the infinite space and freedom within that speck of existence. In order to do that, we must experience the lively nature of our mind, which is so present, so momentary and so fresh. Every individual moment, every individual fragment of that mind, is completely pure and fresh in its own state. The whole point is to experience this freshness and genuineness — the honest face of that tiny spot — without coloring it with our memories, concepts, philosophies or expectations. Experiencing it without all these is what we call simply being there.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Tiny Slippery Spot of Mind
