Most of our suffering comes from having a fixed view of how life, or this day, should go…
For things to reveal themselves to us
we need to be ready to abandon our views about them
Thich Nhat Hahn
A soft gaze
Tag: Life
The still mind of winter
Very unlike the mild winter we are having here in Ireland, but a mind that is perfect for meditation
One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun;
and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land
full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place
for the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Wallace Stevens
In our power
My motto has always been: “Always merry and bright.” Perhaps that is why I never tire of quoting Rabelais: “For all your ills I give you laughter.” As I look back on my life, which has been full of tragic moments, I see it more as a comedy than a tragedy. The man who takes himself seriously is doomed…
There is nothing wrong with life itself. It is the ocean in which we swim and we either adapt to it or sink to the bottom. But it is in our power as human beings not to pollute the waters of life, not to destroy the spirit which animates us.
The most difficult thing for a creative individual is to refrain from the effort to make the world to his liking and to accept his fellow man for what he is, whether good, bad or indifferent.
Henry Miller, 1891 – 1980, American writer and artist.
Earth stuff and star stuff
The practice of cultivating a loving and kind attitude towards ourselves and others, is not a self-improvement technique but an act of quiet daring. As we let down our habitual guard, as we soften and relax, allowing ourselves to loosen the grip of the thoughts and fears that haunt us, we remember the life is here, quietly offering itself to us in this very moment. We remember that we inhabit bodies that come to us from ancestors who endured and overcame much. We remember our deep connection to the earth and also to the stars. We are made of earth stuff and star stuff.
Tracy Cochran
Sent out
God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear: “You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing“….
Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.
Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 59
Nothing to Seek
Birth, old age, Sickness, and death:
From the beginning this is the way things have always been.
Any thought of release from this life will wrap you only more tightly in its snares.
The sleeping person looks for a Buddha, The troubled person turns toward meditation.
But the one who knows that there’s nothing to seek, knows too that there’s nothing to say.
She keeps her mouth closed.
Ly Ngoc Kieu, 1041 – 1113, Vietnamese zen Buddhist nun.
Translation Thich Nhat Hahn and Jane Hirshfield
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