Most of us find it easier to extend compassion towards others than towards ourselves and our own mistakes. We can be our own biggest critics which just intensifies our preoccupation with “ourselves” as something fixed and needing to be improved.
Most of the shadows of this life
are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the morning when you wake up, reflect on the day ahead and aspire to use it to keep a wide-open heart and mind. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, think over what you’ve done. If you fulfilled your aspiration, even once, rejoice in that. If you went against your aspiration, rejoice that you are able to see what you did and are no longer living in ignorance. This way you will be inspired to go forward with increasing clarity, confidence, and compassion.
Pema Chödrön
photo: virtualage
Liberation ….is a process of mentally, emotionally, stepping back from any state and seeing it just as a state, without reactions and attitudes.
This simple skill, which most of us can do from time to time, is what we develop in … practice.
Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma
People never remember happiness with the care that they lavish on
preserving every detail of their suffering
Edward St Aubyn, English Author.
Whatever one keeps pursuing with their thinking and pondering,
that becomes the inclination of their awareness.
The Buddha, Dvedhavitakka Sutta, MN 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Go into yourself
and see how deep the place is
from which your life flows
Rainer Maria Rilke
photo of a mountain spring on Carn Ban Mor by John Horner
