Tag: Mindfulness

Life is filled with many wonders

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We often ask, “What’s wrong?” Doing so, we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We feel suffering, anger, and depression, and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us. We should learn to ask, “What’s not wrong?” and be in touch with that. There are so many elements in the world and within our bodies, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness that are wholesome, refreshing, and healing. If we block ourselves, if we stay in the prison of our sorrow, we will not be in touch with these healing elements.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

Wonderful things

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Each day we take a lot of things for granted…

Mountains and oceans have whole worlds, with innumerable wonderful features.

However, we should understand that it is not only our distant surroundings that are like this,

but even what is right here,

even a single drop of water.

Dogen, 1200 – 1253, Buddhist monk, founder of the Soto school of Zen.

Nothing solid

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Through meditation practice you begin to realize that:

  1. Your thoughts have no birthplace, they just pop up out of nowhere…

2. Thoughts are nevertheless unceasing….

3. They appear but are not solid….

4. Putting that all together, there is no birth, no dwelling, no cessation…

This understanding gives the unsurpassable protection of realizing what is called complete openness [shunyata]. There’s nothing solid to react to. You have made much ado about nothing.

Pema Chodron, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind

Enough

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If you have one pot

And can make your tea in it

That will do quite well.

How much he is missing

who must have a lot of things.

Sen no  Rikyu, 1522 – 1591, Japanese tea master

an antidote to the rhetoric of growth

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A Bank Holiday in Ireland; wise words

But beyond self-care and the ability to (really) listen, the practice of doing nothing has something broader to offer us: an antidote to the rhetoric of growth.

In the context of health and ecology, things that grow unchecked are often considered parasitic or cancerous. Yet we inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and the regenerative.

Jenny Odell, How to do Nothing

Sunday Quote: Gratitude or grievance

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At every moment we have the choice of either feeling gratitude for what has been given to us or indulging in grievance about what is missing. 

Grievance and gratitude are polar opposites.

John Welwood, Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships.