We don’t suffer because of life’s changes.
We suffer because we demand that life be a solid block of happiness.
The problem isn’t the wave; it’s our grip on the boat
Ajahn Sucitto, dharma talk, On Resistence
Tensed
Tag: Mindfulness
Defended
Grace is the word for what it takes to lay down your armour.
To stop protecting yourself long enough to be touched by something beyond your own strategies
Padraig O’Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World
I was there
We often regret the past because we weren’t truly present for it.
The antidote is to live each moment so fully that, even if it’s painful, we can say, ‘I was there. I felt it all.’
Héctor García & Francesc Miralles, Ichigo Ichie: The Art of Making the Most of Every Moment
Sunday Quote: A waste of time
We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That’s the essence of samsara – the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.
Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty
our natural state of ease
There is a deep difference between inactivity and rest. Inactivity is often filled with mental chatter and tension. True rest is a mindful ‘non-doing.’ It is the art of releasing the need to control, to achieve, and to manage every moment. It is in these moments of sincere letting go that we truly restore ourselves and come back to our natural state of ease.
Joseph Emet, Buddha’s Book of Happiness: Teachings for Achieving Lasting Peace, Joy, and Fearlessness
The right eyes
Poet Rainer Maria Rilke was secretary to the sculptor Auguste Rodin when he temporarily lost the ability to write. To Rodin, this meant that Rilke had stopped seeing.
He suggested that the poet go to the Paris Zoo every day and look at one animal until he “saw” it.
Seventy-two poems later, all about a panther, Rilke could say, as he later said of the painter Paul Cezanne , “Suddenly one has the right eyes“
Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage
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