Tag: Life

What are you waiting for?

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I only recently discovered this beautiful poem, on not living in the future, or waiting for some other moment to begin living fully. As Jon Kabat Zinn frequently says, nothing needs to be added to this moment to make it complete. And yet we often fall into the trap of thinking that sometime in the future, the conditions will come together, and we will start to fully live. As the poem says, there will be nothing in that future moment that is greater than now, than this day, when you stop reading this.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

William Stafford, You Reading this, Be Ready

Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com

Nourishing ourselves: Being happy in the way things are

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Blessed are the man and woman who have grown beyond their greed and have put an end to their hatred and no longer nourish illusions.

But they delight in the way things are and keep their hearts open, day and night.

They are like trees planted near flowing rivers which bear fruit when they are ready.

Their leaves will not fall or wither.

Everything they do will succeed. 

Psalm 1. Translation by Stephen Mitchell

Sunday Quote: Dropping into a calm inside

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You who want knowledge,

Seek Oneness within

There you will find

the clear  mirror already waiting

Hadewijch II

On using our time responsibly

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Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time left to confront the real issues. If we look into our lives, we will see clearly how many unimportant tasks, so-called “responsibilities” accumulate to fill them up. One master compares them to “housekeeping in a dream.” We tell ourselves we want to spend time on the important things of life, but there never is any time. Helpless, we watch our days fill up with telephone calls and petty projects, with so many responsibilities  – or should we call them “irresponsibility’s”?

Sogyal Rinpoche

……and not judging it

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As I have said, nothing that arises in our body and in our life happens outside of our journey, of our path, to full realization.  Everything that occurs needs to be welcomed with an attitude of acceptance and openness. No matter what happens, it is imperative that we do not judge it. Especially when we are going through very difficult and trying circumstances, one cannot repeat to oneself too often, “Do not judge it; do not judge it.” Only when we resist the temptation to judge what we are going through can the journey we need to make at this moment continue to unfold, and can we receive the needed development and transformation it may bring.

Reginald Ray, Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body.

Caring for what is troubling

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In matters of soul,

it is advisable never to compensate or to try to escape,

but instead to tend better

the very thing that is causing trouble.

Thomas Moore, Soul Mates