A new month…
The angels, the furies
Are never far away
While we dance, we dance,
Trying to keep a balance
To be perfectly human
(Not perfect, never perfect,
Never an end to growth and peril),
Able to bless and forgive
Ourselves.
This is what is asked of us.
May Sarton, The Angels and the Furies
There is a saying attributed to Lao-tzu in which he defines a great being as someone who encounters difficulties – but never experiences them.
This is because problems are problems when we’re trying to find an answer to them or when we’re trying to get away from them. Problems are problems as long as we have the idea that there shouldn’t be any. But when problems, difficulties, obstacles and hindrances are taken as food – something that you learn to chew over, digest and take in – they become part of life, rather than something outside attacking you, something to be blamed.
But as long as we think about ourselves as being separate from what happens and from each other, we remain tiny and frightened. Handled wisely, the problem that confronts you, the issue or the person you want to keep out offer opportunities for you to grow larger. Relax the resistance, learn, and you’ll grow.
Ajahn Sucitto
How can we ever lose interest in life?
Spring has come again
And cherry trees bloom in the mountains.
Ryokan, 1758 – 1831, Zen monk, hermit and poet
The only choice we have, as we mature, is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous, and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearances to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully,
or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.
David Whyte, “Vulnerability” in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
If you really want to escape the things that bother you,
what you’re needing is not to be in a different place
but to be a different person.
Seneca
The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that their minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned.
No matter what kind of material is thrown into it, it will not burn.
Many experiences – good, bad, and indifferent – are thrown into the flowing river of our lives, but we are not burned, owing to the power of the love in our hearts.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
Mindfulbalance 