In the past days, how many times have we run this way and that, expending energy in places that don’t really align with the deepest sense of where we are going?
Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save;
they just stand there shining
Anne Lamott
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you have a problem.
Everything else is an inconvenience.
Life is an inconvenience.
Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems.
You will live longer.
Robert Fulghum, American author and Unitarian Minister,
Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door
One of the biggest challenges in life is how we deal with disappointment:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett, Worstword Ho, 1983
So what I’m saying is: fail. Then fail again, and then maybe you start to work with some of the things I’m saying. And when it happens again, when things don’t work out, you fail better. In other words, you are able to work with the feeling of failure instead of shoving it under the rug, blaming it on somebody else, coming up with a negative self-image — all of those futile strategies.
“Fail better” means you begin to have the ability to hold what I call “the rawness of vulnerability” in your heart, and see it as your connection with other human beings and as a part of your humanness. Failing better means when these things happen in your life, they become a source of growth, a source of forward, a source of, “out of that place of rawness you can really communicate genuinely with other people.” Your best qualities come out of that place because it’s unguarded and you’re not shielding yourself.
Pema Chodron
photo jorg hempel
What will it be for you today?
It could be a meeting, a walk in nature, even just a cup of coffee…
To pay attention and be fully present is the key
Every day has something in
it whose name is forever.
Mary Oliver, Everything That Was Broken
Suffering sometimes arises when we seek outside ourselves – in others or in achievements – what has to be found within:
I have nothing to defend, for all is of equal value to me.
I cannot lose anything in this
place of abundance
I have found.
Catherine of Siena, Catholic Saint and mystic, 1347 – 1380
There was a very clear super moon last night.
In Chinese philosophy, the “10, 000 things” is a shorthand way of talking about all the experiences – good and bad – which arise and pass away in our day.
This poem reminds us not to give too much substance to all the things which arise today:
Sitting alone in peace before these cliffs
the full moon is heaven’s beacon
the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light
Han-shan, 9th Century legendary Chinese figure.
