In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter,
for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Kahlil Gibran
Tag: Look for Happiness
Starting mindfulness: Walking helps
In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
when I walk I see
that it consists of
three or four hills and a cloud.
Wallace Stephens, Of the Surface of Things
Kindness
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and to purchase bread
only kindness that raises its head
from the world to say
it is I you have been looking for
and goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Words from Under the Words
The cure for sadness
I know a cure for sadness:
Let your hands touch something that
makes your eyes smile.
I bet there are a hundred objects close by that can do that.
Look at beauty’s gift to us –
her power is so great she enlivens
the earth, the sky, our soul.
Mirabai
Looking forward
Hope is a dimension of the soul … an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. … It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.
Vaclav Havel
Stop inviting the future
Don’t prolong the past,
don’t invite the future,
don’t be deceived by appearances,
just dwell in present awareness.
Patrul Rinpoche
Even good and worthwhile, things have the capacity to pull us away from what we should be doing at this moment, which may seem less exciting in comparison. We do not need to rush the future, just do what is in front of us today. The different wisdom traditions often tell stories about this. The famous Zen proverb – Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water – can help us be in the moment and put our whole selves into whatever we are doing. In the tradition of the Church we are often encouraged to remember the example of those who performed their everyday duties with great love, touching the loves of those around them. Sometimes we can get too focused on the special moments, when it is the ordinary things like doing paperwork or making the lunch that count. Or we get deceived by the “appearance” and the imagining of the future in our minds, and are blinded to the actual reality of the task in front of us. As Therese of Lisieux reminds us, Nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love. In the end, it is just another way of reminding us that the present moment is the key to our happiness and our health. We have no place special to go. Happiness is right in front of us.
Mindfulbalance 