This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water
and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to
where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else
which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.
Mary Oliver, Poem of the One World
Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed – that is human. When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go? Life is like a floating cloud which appears. Death is like a floating cloud which disappears. The floating cloud itself originally does not exist. Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear. It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Seungsahn Haengwon, 1927 – 2004, Korean Zen Master
Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go…
The notion of the journey as a harbinger of resolution was once an essential element of the religious pilgrimage, defined as an excursion through the outer world undertaken in an effort to promote and reinforce an inner evolution.
Alain de Botton, A Week at the Airport
The Buddha famously avoided all questions about the afterlife, preferring to focus on what helped us deal with the challenges of this life. He said he was interested only in “suffering and the end of suffering” – practical skills for dealing with the mind.
Hakuin Zenji said, “If you want to know about life after death, ask the man who wants to know.” Thus there is no other way than to ask yourself, for this problem does not belong to the category of knowledge. You yourself must solve it by practice. Buddha’s practice after his enlightenment is not different from each individuals practice before enlightenment, if there is no idea of self. When you are engaged in selfless practice, you are free from the idea of past, present and future; from the idea of this world or another; from the idea of coming or going.
Shunryu Suzuki
Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.
David Levithan, 1972 – American author and editor.
How you stand here is important.
How you
listen for the next things to happen.
How you breathe.
William Stafford, Being A person [extract]
Mindfulbalance 