Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go…
The notion of the journey as a harbinger of resolution was once an essential element of the religious pilgrimage, defined as an excursion through the outer world undertaken in an effort to promote and reinforce an inner evolution.
Alain de Botton, A Week at the Airport
Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.
David Levithan, 1972 – American author and editor.
How you stand here is important.
How you
listen for the next things to happen.
How you breathe.
William Stafford, Being A person [extract]
The Buddha described what we call “self” as a collection of aggregates – elements of mind and body – that function interdependently, creating the appearance of woman or man. We then identify with that image or appearance, taking it to be “I” or “mine,” imagining it to have some inherent self-existence. For example, we get up in the morning, look in the mirror, recognize the reflection, and think, “Yes, that’s me again.” We then add all kinds of concepts to this sense of self: I’m a woman or man, I’m a certain age, I’m a happy or unhappy person – the list goes on and on.
When we examine our experience, though, we see that there is not some core being to whom experience refers; rather it is simply “empty phenomena rolling on.” Experience is “empty” in the sense that there is no one behind the arising and changing phenomena to whom they happen…So when anger arises, or sorrow or love or joy, it is just anger angering, sorrow sorrowing, love loving, joy joying. Different feelings arise and pass, each simply expressing its own nature. The problem arises when we identify with these feelings, or thoughts, or sensations as being self or as belonging to “me”: I’m angry, I’m sad. By collapsing into the identification with these experiences, we contract energetically into a prison of self and separation.
Joseph Goldstein, If There Is No Self, Who Is Born, Who Dies, Who Meditates?
Breathing in, I see the beautiful leaves,
breathing out, I know they are impermanent.
Smiling at the nature of change
I enjoy their presence even more.
Thich Nhat Hanh.
Inside this new love, die. Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into colour.
Do it now. You’re covered with thick cloud. Slide out the side. Die, and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence.
The speechless full moon comes out now.
Rumi, Quietness
