More wisdom from Dogen. I really like this saying:
Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone,
how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?
Dogen, Buddhist monk and philosopher, founder of the Soto school of Zen, 1200 – 1253,
Zen Master Dogen wrote, ‘The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading.’
I’m already in it.
We are all in it; we are made of it.
Susan Moon
God, rest in my heart
and fortify me,
take away my hunger for answers,
let the hours play upon my body like the hands of my beloved.
Mary Oliver, Sometimes.
Feelings are often born from a matrix of conditions beyond your control. Just like you can’t control the weather, or or your boss’s mood, you can’t control the feelings in your body. They are just passing through, like clouds in the sky. They, too, dissipate on their own. But if you take them too seriously and start internalizing them as part of your identity, then you will resuscitate them every time you think about the past. Remember that you are neither your feelings nor the story your mind tells about you to make sense of them. You are the vast silence that knows of their emergence and their disappearance.
Haemin Sunim, The Things You can see Only when you Slow Down
We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence..if you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to yourself. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future
John O’Donohue, Anam Chara
Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone: –
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in our own.
Adam Lindsay Gordon, Australian poet, 1833- 1870
