Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
But what has happened has happened. And the water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again.
What has happened has happened. The water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again, but
Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
Bertholt Brecht, Sometimes
photo Scmtb49
Discernment is a process of letting go what we are not
Father Thomas Keating, Cistercian monk, author of Open Mind, Open Heart
photo mschlindwein
The whole process of meditation is one of creating a good ground, a cradle of loving-kindness where we actually are nurtured. What’s being nurtured is our confidence in our own wisdom, our own health, and our own courage, our own goodheartedness. We develop some sense that the way we are — the kind of personality that we have and the way we express life — is good, and that by being who we are completely and by totally accepting that and having respect for ourselves, we are standing on the ground of warriorship.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape
photo of Croagh Patrick, Co Mayo by Kanchelskis
Even in a country you know by heart
it’s hard to go the same way twice
The life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident.
To get back before dark
is the art of going.
Wendell Berry, Travelling at Home
photo: padawane
It’s so tempting to want the answers before we begin the journey. We like to know our way. We like to have maps. We like to have guides. But we are more like a breathing puzzle, a living bag of pieces, and each day shows us what a piece or two is for, where it might go, how it might fit. Over time, a picture starts to emerge by which we begin to understand our place in the world. Unfortunately we waste a lot of time seeking someone to tell us what life will be like once we live it. We drain ourselves of vital inner fortitude by asking others to map our way. The instructions are in the living.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Map of Ireland 1592 by Abraham Ortelius
If you’re determined to think of yourself as limited, fearful, vulnerable, or scarred by past experience,
know only that you have chosen to do so,
and that the opportunity to experience yourself differently is always available
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living
