Loosen the grip

Psychoanalysis, at its best, doesn’t give us answers but loosens the grip of the questions we’re obsessed with.

Sometimes the most liberating thing is to realize that we don’t need to know why we are the way we are –

we just need to live more freely with the uncertainty.

Adam Phillips, British psychoanalytic psychotherapist and essayist, Going Sane

Sunday Quote: seeds

The earth has been broken open a thousand times to feed us.

What if our pain is also a seed?

Mark Nepo, Inside the Miracle

simplicity

On the occasion of the funeral of Pope Francis, an example of leadership as service, of simplicity in the face of a world of excess and a worldview in contrast to what has taken centre stage these last few months and years.

The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty. … When we go out to the margins, to the suffering, we discover something new: the joy of service.

Pope Francis, Homily 2015, On Serving the poor

Simplicity does not mean poverty or austerity. It is the conscious choice to reduce the superfluous in order to focus on the essential – what truly matters in life.

The more we clutter our lives with distractions, the less space we have for genuine contentment. Happiness thrives in simplicity, in moments of quiet presence rather than in the relentless pursuit of more.

Matthieu Ricard Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

everything changes

The Buddha taught that everything is impermanent – flowers, tables, mountains, political regimes, bodies, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

We cannot find anything that is permanent.

Impermanence is more than an idea.

It is a practice to help us touch reality.

Thich Nhat Hahn, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching

Why we suffer

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is.

When the mind is perfectly clear, “what is” is what we want.

Byron Katie

it is serene

Sometimes the wisest thing to do is not interfere. The universe is already in harmony

Heaven does nothing (wú wéi), yet it is serene; Earth does nothing, yet it is at peace.

By their non-action, the ten thousand things are transformed…

A wise person imitates this: lets the world be as it is, and all things arrange themselves.

Chuang Tzu, The Way of Heaven (Tiān Dào) Chapter 13