Tag: Meditation

Uncertainty, beauty and sadness

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The bluebells in Emo woods are just beginning to wilt. A brief week of beauty shortly to be gone for this year. The Japanese have a word for this  bittersweet awareness of the impermanence of beauty and life – 物の哀れ mono no aware  – often observed when the cheery blossoms bloom and evoke both joy and melancholy, reminding us of life’s transience. Every encounter is unique and will never happen again.

If we were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino,

never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama,

but lingered on forever in this world,

how things would lose their power to move us!

The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

Yoshida Kenkō, 1283–1350, Japanese author and Buddhist monk, Essays in Idleness 

Sunday Quote: release

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True freedom is not about controlling the world around you; it’s about releasing your reactions to it.

When you stop fighting this moment, you realize it was never your enemy.

Michael Singer, Living Untethered

not in the future

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I wish to draw attention to the following problem:

the idea of happiness presupposes that at present we are unhappy.

Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, Sōtō Zen monk, 1812 – 1998

the most important

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In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow.

In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention.

And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.


Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness

a reminder for the new month

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Just as a mirror remains clear and undisturbed regardless of the reflections it holds, so awareness remains pure and unaffected by the ever-changing flow of thoughts, sensations, and perceptions.

To seek happiness in experience is to overlook the happiness that we are – the peace of our own being, prior to all objects.

Rupert Spira, You Are the Happiness You Seek

an experience of stillness

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Just for today claim a window of time – even ten minutes is enough to begin – and rest into an experience of stillness.

Connect gently with your breath, breathing in the life-sustaining breath of the spirit, breathing out and releasing whatever distracts us from this moment.  As thoughts or anxieties arise, gently release them and return to this moment. The invitation is toward both an outer and inner silence.  Notice the way silence nourishes you and consider ways to give yourself this gift each day.

Christine Valters Paintner,  Benedictine oblate, spiritual director, and author, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred