I unlatched the shutters. The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes, monsoons, tornadoes either, but we get them, because our world is as extravagant as a world can be.
We are the ones obsessed by measurement. The world just pours it out.
Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping
Suffering isn’t dependent on the world being good or bad, but on how willing we are to use wisdom in this present moment.
The way out of suffering is now, in being able to see things as they are.
Ajahn Sumedho, The Way it is
Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie.
Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.
Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper
So we have to be patient with ourselves. Over and over again we think we need to be somewhere else, and we must find the truth right here, right now; we must find our joy here, now.
How seductive it is, the thought of tomorrow. We must find our understanding here.
We must find it here; it is always here; this is where the grass is green.
John Tarrant, Calling on the name of Avalokiteshvara
The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever
Mary Oliver, Dream Work
And this, our life…..finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Shakespeare, As You Like It.
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