Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls….
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
Philip Booth, 1925 – 2007, American poet, First Lesson
It’s helpful to realize that this body that we have,
that’s sitting right here right now – with its aches and pains –
is exactly what we need to be fully human,
fully awake, fully alive.
Pema Chodron
Very similar to the wisdom tradition in Ecclesiastes, a long perspective for these uncertain times:
Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled.
Trying to control leads to ruin. Trying to grasp, we lose.
Allow your life to unfold naturally. Know that it too is a vessel of perfection.
Just as you breathe in and breathe out, there is a time for being ahead and a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous and a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe and a time for being in danger.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, v 29
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David Thoreau
Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and to be awake….We tend to daydream all the time, speculating about the future and dwelling on the past. Zen practice is about appreciating your life in this moment. If you are truly aware of five minutes a day, then you are doing pretty well. We are beset by both the future and the past, and there is no reality apart from the here and now.
Peter Matthiessen, 1927 – 2014. American Writer
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint’,
then by all means paint,
and that voice will be silenced.
Van Gogh
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