Tag: Mindfulness

Never satisfied

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According to Buddhism, the root of suffering is neither the feeling of pain nor of sadness nor even of meaninglessness. Rather, the real root of suffering is this never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings, which causes us to be in a constant state of tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction. Due to this pursuit, the mind is never satisfied. Even when experiencing pleasure, it is not content, because it fears this feeling might soon disappear, and craves that this feeling should stay and intensify. People are liberated from suffering not when they experience this or that fleeting pleasure, but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and stop craving them.

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Remember

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We are never really in control.

We just think we are when things happen to be going our way.

Byron Katie

What life is like

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Our life is becoming more and more inundated with TV shows, movies, videos, magazines and newspaper articles that seem to show and tell us what life is like. And then the inevitable comparisons arise: “My life isn’t like that” or “I wish it were” or “It is exactly like that”. The moment we notice sad and painful feelings arising, from thoughts like “I’m unloved; I feel separate and isolated” can we immediately stop, look and listen instead of  going on weaving fancy narratives about ourselves? Can we stop and ask, “Where is this feeling coming from? ” Right now. Asking right this moment. Becoming more transparent to the thoughts and images that evoke these feelings and then deepen, embellish and propagate them. Becoming aware, let us taste directly how stories run our lives.

Toni Parker, The Silent Question.

The beauty of contentment

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Restlessness arises because we do not appreciate the beauty of contentment.

We do not acknowledge the sheer pleasure of doing nothing.

We have a fault-finding mind rather than a mind that appreciates what’s already there.

Ajahn Brahm, Kindfulness

Sunday Quote: Thin Spaces

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I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God than in church thinking about the mountains.

John Muir

A little willingness to see

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Pentecost weekend.

It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance – for a moment, or a year, or the span of a life – and then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light.

That is what I said in the Pentecost sermon. I have reflected on that sermon, and there is some truth in it. But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.

The words of the narrator, a dying minister, to his son in Marilynne Robinson, Gilead