Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
Marge Piercy, 1936 -, American activist, poet and writer, The Seven Of Pentacles
But now his liberated eyes remained on this side, he saw and acknowledged visibility, he sought his home in this world, did not seek reality, did not aim at any beyond.
Beautiful was the world if you contemplated it like this, with no seeking, so simple, so childlike. Beautiful were the moon and stars, beautiful were brook and bank, forest and rock, goat and rose beetle, flower and butterfly. It was beautiful and delightful to go through the world like this, so childlike, so awake, so open to what was near, so without distrust. The sun burned his head differently, the forest shade cooled him differently, brook and cistern tasted differently, as did pumpkin and banana. Short were the days, short the nights, every hour flew by swiftly like a sail across the sea, under the sail a ship full of treasures, full of joys.
All this had always existed, and he had never seen it, he had never been present. Now he was there, he belonged to it. Light and shadow ran through his eyes, star and moon ran through his heart
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Each line is worth a deep reflection in itself.
Simplicity, patience, compassion: These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 67, Stephen Mitchell translation
A welcome new Bank Holiday here in Ireland, to mark the start of Spring and Saint Brigid’s Day
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself — if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself — it is very difficult to take care of another person
In the Buddhist teachings, it’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.
Thich Nhat Hanh
When we go to a medicine person or a healer because we are feeling disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, he or she might ask questions like,
“When did you stop singing?”
“When did you stop dancing?”
“When did you stop being enchanted by stories?“
“When did you begin finding discomfort in the sweet territory of silence?”
Angeles Arrien, 1940 – 2014) Basque-American cultural anthropologist, educator and writer.
The Gate of Liberation is always open. Dogen
Liberation from what? Liberation from walking around in a dream, like a zombie looking for contentment outside your immediate and precious life. If only you could recognize and receive what was actually here in front of you, rather than what you wish were here instead.
Why is that so hard? I don’t know, but I do know that I certainly have a tendency to want to adjust my environment to myself, not the other way round. Instead is it possible for us to constantly give thanks for whatever our life gives us? This is how to practice being truly content with what we have – even when that seems impossible
Koshin Paley Ellison, Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up
Mindfulbalance 