Remembered this poem on Saturday night when we had a clear night and a very bright “Supermoon”, and even an epic victory over the English in rugby is part of the 10,000 things.
Sitting alone in peace before these cliffs
the full moon is heaven’s beacon
the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light
Han Shan
Take a few minutes each day to step out of conventional clock time. Taking this break may lead to a breakthrough, since many of our best ideas arise when we let our minds relax and wander. By relaxing our focus, we can be open to creative impulses, surprising questions, and, at times, robust answers. Each day, for the next seven days, spend ten minutes on not focusing. Just let your mind wander; get up, move to a different space. Be aware of your breath, your body, your walking; notice your surroundings as though seeing things through fresh eyes. Bring a heightened sense of awareness to sensations of sight, sound, smell, and touch.
Marc Lesser
Whatever thoughts and emotions arise in meditation, allow them to rise and settle, like the waves in the ocean. Whatever you find yourself thinking, let that thought rise and settle, without any constraint. Don’t grasp at it, feed it or indulge it, don’t cling to it, don’t try to solidify it. Neither follow thoughts nor invite them; be like the ocean looking down at its own waves, or the sky gazing down on the clouds that pass across it.
You will soon find that thoughts are like the wind; they come and go. The secret is not to “think” about the thoughts but to allow them to flow through your mind, while keeping your mind free of afterthoughts.
Sogyal Rinpoche
The core issue is that we are not comfortable with life as it is – changing, with indistinct boundaries, not meeting our unrealistic expectation. As children most of us learn, from parents, relatives, peers, and caregivers, to want something else, such as external approval, the security of things that don’t change, only pleasurable experiences, or the self-satisfaction of always being in the right.
We are like the drug addict looking for an unending high. We don’t find it with one drug, so we try another drug, then another and another. The variations are wonderfully creative and endless. Looking for the perfect partner, job, community, or profession, can be the drug. Looking for the perfect spiritual teacher can also be the drug. We might hop from one to another, exuberant for a while, and then disappointed. We move on.
When we walk the path of mindfulness, we are encouraged to try a radically different approach. We calm our minds, we focus on the present moment, and we embrace what we find.
Pema Chodron
Another lovely poem by Mary Oliver on how we can look at the world – and everything we see today – as a doorway to deeper mysteries and as a place where our heart can grow. Her words reconnect us with all that is around us and with a deep sense of acceptance of our journey here.
As for life, I’m humbled,
I’m without words sufficient to say
how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these and over and over,
and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries, beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched
though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen—
a tree angel, perhaps, or a ghost of holiness.
Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort—
along with human love,
dog love, water love, little-serpent love,
sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about
stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,
and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.
Mary Oliver, Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond
(Photograph courtesy of Jasmine Trotter http://killdollphotographies.tumblr.com/)
The nature of the mind is comparable to the ocean. The incessant movement of waves on the surface of the ocean prevents us from seeing its depths.
If we dive down there are no more waves; there is just the immense serenity of the depths….
Pema Wangyal Rinpoche
Mindfulbalance 