How we look

A mother lovingly looking at her baby

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves.

The least of things with a meaning is always worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung: The practice of psychotherapy

Looking inside

unmask
A human being has so many skins inside, 
covering the depths of the heart. 
 
We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! 
 
Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or a bear’s, 
cover the soul. 
 
Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. 

 Meister Eckhart

Pushing or pulling

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Many of us don’t allow ourselves to be relaxed. Why do we always try to run and run, even while having our breakfast, while having our lunch, while walking, while sitting? There’s something pushing and pulling us all the time. We make ourselves busy in the hopes of having happiness in the future. In the sutra “Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone,” the Buddha said clearly, “Don’t get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don’t get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Moment is perfect

On the journey

trail

Four Rules For Life

Show up.

Pay attention.

Tell the truth.

Don’t be attached to the results.

Angeles Arrien, 1940 – April 24, 2014

No road

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Walker, your footsteps 

are the road, and nothing more.

Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking.

Walking you make the road,

and turning to look behind 

you see the path you never 

again will step upon.

 

Walker, there is no road, 

only foam trails on the sea.

Antonio Machado,  Proverbs and songs #29

 photo arbget47j

As we go along

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You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To “have” running water you must let go of it and let it run.

Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

photo Paul Glazzard