The habit of judging our experience locks us into mechanical reactions that we are not even aware of and that often have no objective basis at all.These judgments tend to dominate our minds making it difficult to find any peace within ourselves.
It is as if the mind were a yo-yo going up and down on the string of our own judging thoughts all day long
Jon Kabat Zinn
This early morning saw beautiful sunshine and finally the cherry tree at the end of the garden burst into flower. A picture of growth and life. And yet this last week I have gotten some news that reminded me that we are all subject to illness and change. There are times that we cannot predict or even understand all that happens to us or to those who are dear to us. And my work brings me into almost continual contact with the struggles and inner yearnings of people and also the deep-rooted patterns and habits that keep them locked in fear and anxiety. When things go well, as they have been for some time now, or when I am blessed to sit early in the garden on a day such as this, I easily fall into the belief that this will remain the case for ever. However, the news of this week and events over the last few weeks – with the disaster in Japan and the outbreak of war in Libya and the struggles of people in Syria and the Ivory Coast – remind me that our life here is unsatisfactory in a fundamental way. We can never be certain of the permanence of any external thing to which we look for our feelings of wellbeing. So this throws me back inside myself and to the ongoing cultivation of a quality of awareness that can work with everything that happens, good and bad. Moments like this help me to focus on the question of how I are living this life which is constantly subject to change. It reminds me to work with life as it is and not just with the parts that are as I like. What are the priorities I choose and which I want to endure? Can I practice mindfulness in all my choices? Where am I focusing my energy? In the small corner of the world where I am, can I stay in contact with people around that which is important and let go of all that contributes to the suffering of the world?
You are like a candle. Imagine you are sending light out all around you. All your words, thoughts and actions are going in many directions. If you say something kind, your kind words go in many directions, and you yourself go with them. We are …transforming and continuing in a different form at every moment.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it’s anything but safe. But we don’t like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality. The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal spotlight: seeing things as they really are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. A smile, a face in the subway, the sight of a small flower growing in the crack of cement pavement, a fall of rich cloth in a shop window, the way the sun lights up flower pots on a windowsill. Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace. Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments “to the news that is always arriving out of silence”.
Slowly, you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate and inspire your every breath and movement.
Sogyal Rinpoche
We are fragmented into so many different aspects.
We don´t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.
Meditation, then, is bringing the mind home
Sogyal Rinpoche
Mindfulbalance 