Tag: Present moment

Everything is as it should be.

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An old man was asked, “What is it necessary to do to be saved?”
He was making rope, and without looking up from the work, he replied, “You are looking at it.”

Salvation is an everyday ordinary experience. If Christianity really does proclaim good news, then the good news is that everything is redeemed. Nothing is condemned. All that is left to do is to realize it. No condition of life precludes happiness. No condition of life increases it. For a given individual, making rope is as holy and effective and expressive as any ritual religious act. The simple act of making rope, or washing dishes, or walking to the office, or talking on the phone, does not imply anything other than itself. Nor is it meant to. Everything is as it should be. Give up the search. It is right here. It is obvious.

Gregory Mayers, Listen to the Desert: Secrets of Spiritual Maturity from the Desert Fathers and Mothers

New month

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Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new.

Thus life is always new.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Patiently we practice every day

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Nothing which is ready-to-hand or present-to-hand within the world functions…. in the face of which anxiety is anxious.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

Untouched

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We are made – the scriptures of all religions assure us =  in the image of God. Nothing can change that original goodness. Whatever mistakes we have made in the past, whatever problems we may have in the present, in every one of us this “uncreated spark in the soul” remains untouched, ever pure, ever perfect. Even if we try with all our might to douse or hide it, it is always ready to set our personality ablaze with light.

Eknath Easwaran, 1910–1999,  Indian born spiritual teacher and author.

Empty Time

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Finding yourself doesn’t require that you fly to Tibet, join a convent, or build a meditation room.

Just consistently keep a minimal commitment to empty time. 

Martha Beck

Seeds of wakefulness

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Every time you’re willing to acknowledge your thoughts, let them go, and come back to the freshness of the present moment, you’re sowing seeds of wakefulness in your unconscious. After a while what comes up is a more wakeful, more open thought. You’re conditioning yourself toward openness rather than sleepiness. You might find yourself caught, but you can extricate yourself by how you use your mind, how you actually are willing to come back just to nowness, the immediacy of the moment. Every time you’re willing to do that, you’re sowing seeds for your own future, cultivating this innate fundamental wakefulness by aspiring to let go of the habitual way you proceed and to do something fresh.

Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness