What is right today is wrong tomorrow
Ryokan, 1758 – 1831, Japanese Zen monk and poet
Next time is next time.
Now is now
The words of Hirayama in the beautiful, meditative, film Perfect Days, to his niece who wants to know when they will go to see the ocean.
It sums up his whole philosophy of life
Therefore, tell me:
what will engage you?
What will open the dark fields of your mind,
like a lover
at first touching?
Mary Oliver, Flare
One way of dealing with the inner critic, found in many different traditions, East and West:
So the holy elders,” I added, “claim that the best strategy to cope with troublesome logismoi [thoughts] is simply to ignore them.” “Precisely. Our first defense against destructive logismoi is complete indifference. This is the healthiest and most productive method to head them off right at their inception. Ignore them completely. Never open up a dialogue with these intruders. Do not interact with them either out of curiosity or out of overconfidence.”
Kyriacos C. Markides, The Mountain of Silence: a search for Orthodox Spirituality
Feastday of Saint Francis of Assisi
The tree which moves some to tears of joy, is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all.
But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
William Blake
You have power over your mind, not outside events.
Realize this, and you will find strength
Marcus Aurelius
We reduce, concretize, or substantialize experiences or feelings, which are, in their very nature, fleeting or evanescent. In so doing, we define ourselves by our moods and by our thoughts. We do not just let ourselves be happy or sad, for instance; we must become a happy person or a sad one. This is the chronic tendency of the ignorant or deluded mind, to make “things” out of that which is no thing.
Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker
Mindfulbalance 