A post from an Irish author, to mark St Patrick’s Day
I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding
John O’Donohue
photo of Kells Bridge over the Kings River by Mike Searle
Tag: Mindfulness
Elsewhere
Often what keeps us from joy
is the menacing assumption
that life is happening other than where we are
Mark Nepo
photo of Bantry from outside the town by pam Brophy
Sunday Quote: Be still and know
To a mind that is still
the whole universe surrenders
Chuang Tzu, Chinese philosopher, 4th Century BC.
photo Joanne Bergenwall
Watching it pass by
Through mindfulness practice you began to experience how conditioned the world is and how these conditions constantly change. To free ourselves, we need to quieten the mind through some mindfulness in meditation. Then, instead of identifying with the changing conditions, we learn to release them and turn toward consciousness itself, to rest in the knowing. Ajahn Chah called this pure awareness, “the original mind,” and resting in “the one who knows.” We can be in the midst of an experience, being upset or angry or caught by some problem, and then step back from it and rest in pure awareness. We let go.
Jack Kornfield, This Fantastic, Unfolding Experiment
A place of consistent beauty
More encouragement to discover our inner strength and beauty, this time in the poetry of Kabir:
Don’t go outside your house to see flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens.
Kabir, Translated from the Hindi by Robert Bly
photo photdharma
A time for silence
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling in the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
photo Helgi halldorsson
