Healing depends on listening with the inner ear – stopping the incessant blather, and listening. Fear keeps us chattering – fear that wells up from the past, fear of blurting out what we really fear, fear of future repercussions. It is our very fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present.
Marion Woodman, 1928 – 2018, Canadian author and analytical psychologist, The Pregnant Virgin
Once you are able to quiet the mind, you have a highly sustainable source of happiness. My friends, that is a life-changing insight. That suggests that happiness is not something we pursue, happiness is already there. Happiness is something we access, something we allow. Once you understand that, it changes everything in life.
Chade-Meng Tan
Without stepping out the door, one can know the world.
Without looking out of the window
One can see the way of heaven.
The further one goes
The less one knows.
Therefore:
The wise person knows without having to stir,
perceives without having to see,
Accomplishes without having to act.
Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, chapter 47
Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite.
It actually takes guts.
Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us,
we enter the warrior’s world.
Pema Chodron
Every Moment is a Moment of Practice
Sylvia Boorstein
Not a single drop of water passes over the same rock twice, and the murmur of water rushing over a rock is constantly changing. Sameness is but an illusion of the human ears, eyes, mind. Water that has once flowed along a riverbed can never retrace its course. Human life is no different. It is only our mundane eyes and minds that we see yesterday as being the same as today.
Enlightened eyes and minds should recognize that each moment has a form different from that of any other moment
Shundo Aoyama, Zen Seeds
