Tag: Life

Just rest

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Once there was a man who hated his own shadow.
When he walked and found that his shadow was close behind him, he began to walk faster and faster.

But every time he put his foot down, there was another step, while his shadow kept up with him without the slightest difficulty.

He attributed his failure to the fact that he was not running fast enough.
So he ran faster and faster, without stopping, until he finally dropped dead.


Those who do not understand the Dao are just like this man who hated his shadow. It is actually very easy to be rid of one’s shadow – just rest under a tree.

Just rest.

Chuang Tzu, 369 – 286 BC, Chinese Philosopher

[The Tao or Dao is the natural order of the universe. Health and happiness comes from being in harmony with this natural way]

Mysterious

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A man who has never experienced this has missed something important. He must sense that he lives in a world which in some respects is mysterious; that things happen and can be experienced which remain inexplicable; that not everything which happens can be anticipated. The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole.

For me the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable.


Carl Jung

What wishes to grow?

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Whatever wishes to grow within you —a curiosity, a talent, an interest —

is life seeking its expression through you. Our old desire for comfort, even happiness,

may prove an impediment. We are here a very short time.

Let us make it as luminous and as meaningful as we can.

Time to stop being afraid, and time to show up as yourself.

James Hollis, Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey

Sunday Quote: Every ending is a beginning

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We arrive and we start again

Hazak, Hazak, Venithazzek [חֲזַק חֲזַק וְנִתְחַזֵּק ]

Be strong,

be strong,

Let us be strengthened

[or Let us strengthen one another]

The words traditionally chanted at the end of the reading of the books of the Torah

Comings and goings

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Does not just apply to people but to all experiences

When you do not block people from coming to you, when you do not stop people from leaving, and when your mind transcends both their coming and leaving, your spiritual practice is indeed accomplished.

Kim Jae Woong, Polishing the Diamond, Enlightening the Mind: Reflections of a Korean Buddhist Master

Living fully

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The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright.…Ezekiel excoriates false prophets who have “not gone up into the gaps.” The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit’s one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fjords splitting the cliffs of mystery.

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock – more than a maple – a universe. This is how you spend the afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek