I gaze on myself in the stream’s emerald flow,
Sit on a boulder by a cliff.
My mind, a lonely cloud,
Leans on nothing, needs nothing
From the world and its endless events.
HanShan, Chinese Buddhist and Taoist poet
Undisturbed
Tag: Present moment
The dance
The invitation is to throw yourself into the dance,
whether the music is always of your choosing or not,
as if it were both an experiment and an adventure.
Jon Kabat Zinn
Opportunities for joy
Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form
Thich Nhat Hanh
The mind is all stories
Dipa Ma taught that the mind is all stories, one after another, like nesting dolls. You open one, and another is inside. Open that one, and there is another story emerging. When you get to the last nesting doll, the smallest one, and open it, inside of it is – what? It’s empty, nothing there, and all around you are the empty shells of the stories of your life
Amy Schmidt, author, Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master
[Dipa Ma, 1911 – 1989 was an Indian meditation teacher of Theravada Buddhism, who had a big influence on early teachers in the Insight Meditation Society in Barre Massachusetts]
A flash of lightning
A lot of thunderstorms these days in Ireland
The Buddha often used images to try to convey some of this sense of all appearances arising, with nothing we can hold on to. He said life is like a rainbow, an echo, a dream, a drop of dew on a blade of grass, a flash of lightning in a summer sky.
What does a deeper glimpse into this truth of change offer us, ultimately? We see that there is a tender, exultant beauty to every hour, in fact to every minute we have just because we are alive. ..The fragility and dynamism of life is what makes it so vital. Every experience, every encounter, every realized desire, and every unfulfilled longing that comes into our lives is moving, changing…
Life is short, and it is sacred
Sharon Salzberg, Real LIfe: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom
Don’t pick them up
One day a visitor to Ajahn Chah’s monastery said to him “You have so much going on here! You have dozens of monks and nuns under your guidance and now this big building project going on. And you have these 30 to 40 branch monasteries all around.
So many things to do. So many responsibilities….
It must be really hard work for you?“
In response, Ajahn Chah pointed to some nearby stones. “Do you think they are heavy?”
And the visitor replied, “Oh yes, really heavy”
To which Ajahn Chah replied, “Not if you don’t pick them up”
As told by Ajahn Amaro, Amaravarti podcast talk, Chapter 3.20 – Practicing Dharma
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