We often go through our day or our life with our defenses up…
I seemed to hear God saying, “Put down your gun and we’ll talk.”
C.S. Lewis
Tag: Meditation
Principles for today
I follow four principles:
Face it,
Accept it,
Deal with it,
Then let it go.
Sheng Yen, 1930 – 2009, Chinese Buddhist monk
Paying attention
Friday…a little more space appears…we can perhaps notice the beauty all around us, in the little things, new colours, some time for ourselves:
I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do.
The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me; the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel,
the unutterable muddiness of mud…
GK Chesterton
Making the most of life
Mindful eating at its best, the poet fully taken by the eating of a peach. It can be the same for us today if we give any moment our full awareness:
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
extract, Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms
South Korean Screen painting of the Sun, Moon and Peach Trees
Training in contentment
Peace is the result of retraining your mind
to process life as it is,
rather than you think it should be.
Wayne Dyer
photo 4028mdk09
On change, choice, life and death
Two paths diverge in a wood….
You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.
You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.
You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…
Pablo Neruda from Dying Slowly
