Whatever is subject to arising,
is also subject to passing away
Collection of Middle-length Discourses, 56
photo jm garg
Tag: Mindfulness
The start of Autumn
Here in the Irish and Celtic calendar, the season of Autumn began on Monday, the 1st of September. Although the weather is still very mild, the mornings are misty and some leaves have already started to fall. We are moving into a period which helps us reflect on impermanence and on the fact that all things change. Our meditation practice reminds us that there is only suffering to be had when we try to fix things solid, or hold onto them, like the long days of summer or the memories of times past. We instinctively prefer permanence and how it tells a story of a solid, single identity. Instead, in reality, like the seasons, we are always changing; things come and go in our lives. Nature lets go and moves on. Maybe we can learn from that.
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.
May Sarton, Autumn Sonnets
photo of the Barrow river at Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow.
What glorious things today
Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life: a frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, a loss of a job or a limb or a loved one, a graduation, bringing a new baby home: it’s impossible to think at first how this all will be possible. Eventually, what moves it all forward is the subterranean ebb and flow of being alive among the living.
In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again.
Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again
Barbara Kingsolver High Tide in Tucson
Why we frequently get it wrong
As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. To the degree that we’ve been avoiding uncertainty, we’re naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms — withdrawal from always thinking that there’s a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
photo sajid213
Step out of the current
In the West many of us live in physical comfort, yet because we are continually being presented with more refined commodities or changing standards by which to measure ourselves, there’s not much contentment. And there are social and group pressures…. People can become depressed if their bodies don’t match up to the current standards of beauty, or if their personality is not smart enough, cynical enough, seedy enough – whatever the fashion is. … So there can be a nervous feeling of inadequacy and insecurity which deprives us of a sense of trust in our innate worth as a human being. So because of just this, it’s important that we sense and define ourselves as ‘being’ apart from those currents, if only to get onto some firmer ground. And what really helps is to be able to calm and collect the mind, and to develop oneself in what gives greater benefit. …. This is because how you attend creates the dwelling place of the mind. So if we can begin to experience clarity and empathy for ourselves and others, we find ourselves living in a more appreciative and balanced way that encourages goodness to develop.
Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma
Working with who we are
Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth,
rather than touching the earth,
touching ground
Chogyam Trungpa
