Sometimes we can try too hard, and letting go is a better response
When the archer shoots without caring about the prize,
His skill is at its greatest.
When he shoots for a brass buckle, he’s nervous.
When he shoots for a gold medal, he’s blind.
His skill hasn’t changed – its the prize that divides the mind.
Liezi, a Taoist text attributed to Lie Yukou, 5th Century BC Chinese philosopher, Chapter 2
The Buddha talked of the eight great vicissitudes of life:
Pleasure and Pain, Gain and Loss, Praise and Blame, and Fame and Disrepute.
These changes happen to everyone.
One of great laws of the dharma that I find myself often rediscovering is “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma
The alternative to a breaking heart is a closed one, and that is a deeper kind of death.
In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark,
and not to turn.
Stanley Kunitz, American poet, The Testing-Tree
Each morning brings a hidden blessing;
a blessing which is unique to that day, and which cannot be kept or re-used.
If we do not use this miracle today, it will be lost.
Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
You breathe in gratitude,
and you breathe it out, too.
Once you learn how to do that, then you can bear someone who is unbearable
Anne Lamott
When it’s dishwashing time, just wash the dishes; sitting time, just sit;
driving time, just drive; talking time, just talk. That’s all. Nothing special. When you’re doing something, just do it.
[However,] It’s easy to say “When you’re doing something, just do it,” but this is very difficult.
Just don’t hold. Thinking is OK. Checking is OK. Only holding is a problem. Don’t hold. Feelings coming and going, OK. Don’t hold. If your mind is not holding anything, it is clear like space.
Clear like space means that sometimes clouds come, sometimes rain or lightning or an airplane comes … but the air is never broken.
Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn. 1927 – 2004
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