Recognizing and welcoming what is here in front of us, instead of always waiting for things to be “better” than the situation we are actually in:
The mind and external conditions are just as they are (“such”).
The gate of liberation is open.
Dogen, 1200-1253, founder of the Soto branch of Zen Buddhism, Commentary on the Precepts
The more I remove myself from nature and the more I increase my availability to the modern world, the more restless I become. I am no scientist and realize that I may be mistaken, but my experience is that feelings of insecurity, loneliness and depression to a large extent stem from the flattening of the world that occurs when we are alienated from nature. There is, of course, a lot to be said in favour of man-made environments and new technology, but our eyes, nose, ears, tongue, skin, brain, hands and feet were not created for choosing the road of least resistance.
Mother Nature is 4.54 billion years old, so it seems to me arrogant when we don’t listen to nature and instead blindly place our trust in human invention.
Erlinge Kagge, Philosophy for Polar Explorers
What do I do with all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down?
The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is a possibility of beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek?
Annie Dilliard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Most of life only lasts a moment. Then our life becomes a memory, a dream. We are only alive a millisecond at a time. This moment! Or as one teacher put it, holding his thumb and forefinger about a quarter-inch apart, “All of life is only just this much – just a moment in time.” When we open to this very instant in which awareness produces consciousness, we are fully alive. Completely present. Big-minded. To the degree we are present for “just this much”, this living moment, we are alive.
Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Embracing the Beloved
We sometimes need to change our understanding of strength to include yielding and gentleness. Not fighting with the reality of wind and being able to bend and go back are realities we can learn from the natural world.
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.
Bruce Lee
The tree is made strong and resilient by its grounded root system. These roots take nourishment from the ground and grow strong. Grounding also allows the tree to be resilient so that it can yield to the winds of change and not be uprooted. Springiness is the facility to ground and ‘unground’ in a rhythmical way. This buoyancy is a dynamic form of grounding.
Aggressiveness is the biological ability to be vigorous and energetic, especially when using instinct and force. In the immobility (traumatized) state, these assertive energies are inaccessible. The restoration of healthy aggression is an essential part in the recovery from trauma.
Peter Levine, Walking the Tiger
Happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .
Naomi Shihab Nye, So Much Happiness [extract]
