This, a world seen no longer from the human point of view,
but inside the angel,
is perhaps my real task.
Rilke, in a Letter, 1915
Sunday Quote: Luminous
Tag: Mindfulness
Difficulty is a school
Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into it and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route of becoming.
All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the tough core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in your world, and to come into your own.
Difficulty is always a school, though learning is optional.
Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby
Don’t give your power away
I think of the past twenty years,
when I used to walk home quietly
from Kuo-ch’ing,
All the people in the Kuo-ch’ing monastery –
would say, “Hanshan is an idiot.”
“Am I really an idiot:” I reflected.
But my reflections failed to solve the question:
for I myself do not know who the self is,
So how can others know who I am?
Hanshan, 9th century, Chinese Buddhist/Taoist poet
Keep believing
It’s madness to hate all roses because you got scratched with one thorn, to give up all dreams because one of them didn’t come true, to give up all attempts because one of them failed. …..
There will always be another opportunity, another friend, another love, a new strength. For every end, there is always a new beginning….. And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Hidden in plain sight
Just as well, with the amount of rain we are getting in Ireland…
I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said,”That’s a waste of time.
If you really understand Zen, you can use any book. You could use the bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. you could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation”.
Alan Watts, In my Own Way
It Should be
As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be,
You cannot see how it is
Ram Dass
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