Working with our anxieties

We can never solve our lives. Life is not a thing that can be broken and then fixed. Life is a process, and we can never solve a process. We can only participate in this process, either consciously or unconsciously. We aren’t going to find the perfect formula and then coast our way through life. We can’t make pain go away, although we can reduce unnecessary suffering significantly. The more deeply we investigate, the less we can grasp or even know this apparent self that Western psychology takes as its foundation. From the Buddhist perspective, the nature of life — and of our own mind — is basically open. There is no foundation; no ground to stand on. We can consciously participate in this open nature, but we can’t know it.

Bruce Tift, How to Work with Anxiety on the Path of Liberation

Sunday Quote: No time to them

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love letters

We complain a lot about the ever-changing weather in Ireland; this week alone storms and snow, cold and fog…

Every day, priests minutely examine the Teachings
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by
The wind and rain, the snow and moon.

Ikkyu, 1394–1481

Meaning is created

When we don’t have sufficient information about what is happening around us, we create meaning. The problem is…this meaning is largely negative. We personalize events and other peoples reactions, interpreting them as responding to us when they aren’t. For example, we decide a person is judgmental because they are frowning while we talk, when we are actually missing the fact that this person always frowns when they are listening carefully. We make us a story that they dislike us, which makes us afraid of them. Why? Because negative facts make a stronger impression on us than positive or neutral ones. 

From a nice little book – Leah Weiss, The Little Book of Bhavana

The best time

 

If your mind isn’t clouded

by unnecessary things,

this is the best season of your life.

Wumen Huikai, 1183 -1260

Peace of mind

Peace of mind does not result from the attempt to control our lives. In fact, it is just the opposite. It comes from the wisdom that is illuminated when we learn how to relax in a way that allows us to ‘be with what is.’ In our practice, we learn how to engage in something when it is appropriate and how to disengage as well. Peace of mind comes from recognizing how one fits into the scheme of things, the degree to which all life is interconnected, and the realization that nobody is ever alone.

David A Cooper, Ecstatic Kabbalah