Tag: Mindfulness

Wisdom is the capacity to see things as they are, without the obscurations of fear or desire. It’s not about knowing more but seeing clearly. When I remember that everything changes – pleasure, pain, even my own life = I stop clinging. This isn’t resignation; it’s liberation. The Buddha didn’t say, ‘Life is suffering.’ He said, ‘Clinging to life as if it were solid and permanent is suffering.’ Wisdom is the antidote to that clinging.

Sylvia Boorstein, It’s Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

The Eastern tradition frequently encourages flexibility, adaptability, and flowing with the natural order. A Bamboo bending with the wind is a frequent image. 

People are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

Tao Te Ching, 76

In meditation, we are not trying to become something or get somewhere. We are allowing the mind to settle into its natural state The practice is not about controlling or forcing but about letting go, observing, and trusting in the inherent stillness and wakefulness that is always present.

The breath is a wonderful anchor for this process. It requires no belief system, no special ideology – just the simple, direct experience of the body breathing. We are just noticing it as it is: the rise and fall, the coolness at the nostrils, the movement in the abdomen. This simplicity is where wisdom begins to arise.

Thoughts will come and go, sensations will shift, but the key is to remain the knowing space in which all of this unfolds. 

Ajahn Amaro, Small Boat, Great Mountain: Theravadan Reflections on the Natural Great Perfection 

The weeks of sunny settled weather since the start of the month broke yesterday. Back to more typical Irish summer weather, sunshine and showers….

There is no attainment whatsoever. Because there is nothing to be attained.

The Heart Sutra

The first time I heard Suzuki Roshi speak, he said “You are perfect just as you are”. I thought “He doesn’t know me. I am new here” But again and again he would keep pointing in that direction saying “You have everything you need”, “You are already complete”, “Just to be alive is enough”. I finally had to assume that I was not the sole exception to these assertions, but I was still dubious.

And as I continued to practice and talk with other students, I found that many people share the conditioning that leads us to think that there’s something wrong with us. If we could only “get”, “do” or “be” something more, “then” we would be alright.

Its so easy for us to get the idea that there is something wrong with us. And so hard to let go of that and just appreciate this one life, as it is, as a gift.

Blanche Hartman, Seeds for A Boundless Life