Every time we make a mindful step, we are engaged in an act of enlightenment.
We can be enlightened about the fact that we are making a step.
Each step can have beauty in it.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Tag: Present moment
A yes to life
Aligning with your ‘yes!’ is about feeling nourished on every level – feeling deeply alive. I’m not talking about the shallow, quick-fix kinds of comfort that make us feel good only temporarily. The kind of feeling good that I’m talking about, which comes from aligning with your ‘yes!,’ is about listening for the deeper truth underneath all of that. It’s that knowledge that ‘I’m in the right place, at the right time, doing what I’m here to do.’ You feel grounded and at home in yourself. Your life becomes rooted in a deep ‘yes!’ You feel alive and grateful to be in direct contact with life. You are in touch with how exquisite it is to feel and be with the raw truth of all that is moving through you. This kind of alignment includes difficult emotions, pain, and tension. It can include illness and struggle. It is about being in direct, authentic contact with the wholeness of life. Nothing is denied. It is your truth and you are awake to it.
Deborah Zucker, The Vitality Map
Sunday Quote : Life is always changing
You live,
not by securing yourself against impermanence,
but by finding yourself as impermanence
Michael Stone, Awake in the World
Our cat Barney who died on Tuesday, aged 19
How to get free in our hearts
We often prefer to live in our ideas or dreams about life and not where it actually is.
Experiencing,
rather than trying to have special experiences
is where real freedom lies
Ezra Bayda, At Home in the Muddy Water
photo jaka ostrovrsnik
What makes life beautiful?
Some reflections from Brother Roger of Taize who I once met when I spent a silent retreat there. He was a good and kindly man, and outlines here an approach which can shape our whole attitude to this day and to life:
Are there realities which make life beautiful
and of which it can be said that they bring a kind of fulfillment, an inner joy?
Yes, there are. And one of these realities bears the name of trust.
Do we realize that what is best in each of us is built up through a simple trusting?
This is something even a child can do.
Br Roger of Taize
photo nicor
When things are dark in our lives
In Buddhism, a definition of faith is the ability to keep our hearts open in the darkness of the unknown. The root of the word patience is a Latin verb for “suffer,” which in the ancient sense meant to hold, not to grasp but to bear, to tolerate without pushing away. Being patient doesn’t mean being passive. It means being attentive, willing to be available to what is happening, going on seeing, noticing how things change. When we aren’t wishing for something to be over, or when we aren’t freezing around an idea about what it is we are seeing, we see and hear more. We notice that nature has cycles, that each day is not the same length and quality, and that darkness passes. The meaning of life, the real purpose of our presence here, is being attentive, being willing to go on seeing and keeping our hearts open — not just for our sake but for the sake of others. We make ourselves available to life, opening our hearts to the passing flow of it, knowing we will blunder and get it wrong but sometimes right.
Tracy Cochran (with thanks to make believe boutique)
photo NCCo
