What is in front of you

Happiness lies not in finding what is missing,

but in finding what is present

Tara Brach

Don’t hide love

Don’t hide love.

If you feel it, express it – not to demand that others love you back, but simply to live outwardly the best of what you feel inwardly.

The worst that can happen to your heart is not rejection by another person but failure to act on the love you feel. 

Martha Beck

Sunday Quote: Reaching the mystery

We all have an deep seated drive to seek happiness somewhere else, with special conditions

Reaching the mystery is nothing other than breaking through

and grabbing an ordinary person’s life.

Zen saying

Ordinary mind

When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.

P’ang Yün (Layman Pang) died 808, famous lay practitioner of Ch’an Buddhism

What matters

All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are
and who you are is where you will be
when death takes you across the river.

John Squadra, 1932 – American artist and poet

This month: Let life take you by the hand

Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.

He says everyone of us is a child,
everyone of us is ancient,
everyone of us has a body.
He says everyone of us is frightened.
He says everyone of us has to find
a way to live with fear..

He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.

He says keep doing what you love...

It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.

Peace is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

Roger Keyes, 1942-2020 American professor of East Asian studies, art historian and poet, Hokusai says [extracts]

Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese artist, best known as author of the woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa.