That is why the sage can act without effort
and teach without words,
nurture things without possessing them,
and accomplish things without expecting merit:
only one who makes no attempt to possess it, cannot lose it.
Lao Tzu
Tag: Mindfulness
Discovering what needs to be let go of.
No matter how fortunate your circumstances are, life can at times be stressful and challenging. We often try to ignore this fact and therefore feel frustrated and disappointed when we don’t get our own way. Just as we did when approaching compassion, it can be useful to think back to the blue sky analogy when you reflect on acceptance.
The journey to acceptance is about discovering what we need to let go of, rather than what we need to start doing. By noticing moments of resistance throughout the day, you can start to become more aware of what prevents acceptance from naturally arising. This in turn will allow you to view the thoughts and feelings that arise during your meditation with a much greater sense of ease.
Andy Puddicombe, Ten Tips for Living more Mindfully
Where we learn
Whatever is arising in this moment becomes the curriculum for liberating ourselves from the shackles of greed, hatred and delusion. We do not need some ideal or romantic fairy tale of what would be best for us. What we need most is what is already given to us: the actuality of things as they are in the only moment we will ever have – this one.
Jon Kabat Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners.
Travelling lightly
It’s like a dance. And we have to give each being space to dance their dance. Everything is dancing; even the molecules inside the cells are dancing. But we make our lives so heavy. We have these incredibly heavy burdens we carry with us like rocks in a big rucksack. We think that carrying this big heavy rucksack is our security; we think it grounds us. We don’t realize the freedom, the lightness of just dropping it off, letting it go. That doesn’t mean giving up relationships; it doesn’t mean giving up one’s profession, or one’s family,or one’s home. It has nothing to do with that; it’s not an external change. It’s an internal change. It’s a change from holding on tightly to holding very lightly.
Tenzin Palmo, Into the Heart of Life
Sunday quote: It is not always clear
You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time
and build your wings on the way down
Anne Dilliard
Not about getting anywhere
Practice is not about highlighting all sorts of “good” qualities and getting rid of “bad” ones. No one is “good” or “bad.” The struggle to be good is not what practice is. That type of training is a subtle form of athleticism. We all hope to change, to get somewhere! That in itself is the basic fallacy. But just contemplating this desire begins to clarify it, and the practice basis of our life alters as we do so. We begin to comprehend that our frantic desire to get better, to get “somewhere,” is illusion itself, and the source of suffering.
Charlotte Joko Beck
