Contentment is the crown of the spiritual life.
It’s not about having what you want but wanting what you have.
Ajahn Amaro, from a 2015 talk
Sunday Quote: being content
Tag: Meditation
Doing Nothing
We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don’t allow our bodies to heal, and we don’t allow our minds and hearts to heal. […] The practice of doing nothing is very important. It is the foundation. If you cannot stop, you cannot be.
Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Relax
The next branch
Birds don’t carry their perch with them – they trust the next branch will appear.
So often, we exhaust ourselves clinging to what’s familiar, afraid to fly without guarantees.
But life, like the sky, is always changing. Trust the next branch.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
It flows
We spend so much of our lives trying to figure things out, to nail down the truth, to be certain. But what if the deepest truth is found not in knowing, but in surrendering to the vastness of not knowing?
In Zen practice, we sit with the question, with the breath, with the moment – without an agenda. This is not a passive resignation but an active engagement with life as it is, free from the filters of our assumptions. When we let go of the need to know, we open ourselves to a reality that is alive, immediate, and infinitely creative.
Not knowing is not ignorance. It is the willingness to meet each experience with fresh eyes, to admit that our thoughts and beliefs are provisional, and to rest in the mystery of being. This takes courage.
But here’s the secret: When we stop clinging to what we think we know, we discover a freedom that was always here. The bird doesn’t need to know how to fly; it flies. The river doesn’t need to know how to flow; it flows. Can you let yourself be like that?
Melissa Blacker in The Book of Not Knowing
Unbecoming
We take ourselves so seriously- our opinions, our achievements, our failures -as if they were monumental, eternal things. But really, they’re just fleeting conditions, like bubbles in a glass of soda. Pop! And they’re gone.
The ego wants to be somebody special, to be remembered, to leave a mark. But the Dhamma isn’t about becoming – it’s about unbecoming. It’s about letting go of the illusion that you’re this grand, separate self. When you see through that, life becomes playful.
The Buddha’s enlightenment wasn’t some solemn, pompous event. It was the ultimate release – from all the heaviness of self. So why cling to your burdens? Why not lighten up?”
Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence
Trust the process
The way to do is to be.
“Wu wei” means doing by not overdoing. It’s the wisdom of the gardener who nurtures growth without yanking on the plants. It’s the skill of the carpenter who follows the grain instead of forcing the wood. It’s the patience of the cook who lets the soup simmer, knowing interference will only spoil the broth.
In our lives, wu wei is the art of trusting the process – not laziness, but the hardest work of all: getting yourself out of the way
Ursula K. Le Guin, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching – A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way
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