Tag: Present moment

Obstacles

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When challenges or obstacles arise for us, we don’t have to get so intimidated; we can say, “Yes, it’s an obstacle, but it is not intrinsically bad; it’s not going to destroy me.” To create a relationship with the obstacle, learn about it, and finally overcome it is going to be a helpful thing to do. It gives us a chance to cultivate wisdom and skillful means. It gives us confidence. We cannot eliminate all of the challenges or obstacles in life— our own or anyone else’s. We can only learn to rise to the occasion and face them

Dzigar Kongtrul, Light Comes through


What we need to remember when afraid …

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What lies behind us and what lies before us

are tiny matters compared to what lies within us

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We just don’t know

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Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don’t know. We never know if we’re going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.

Pema Chodron

Have no agenda

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My own experience is that the less you have in the way of expectations, the more effectively your efforts will bring fruits and beneficial results. Here in the West we are very idealistic, we create a fixed image – usually unconsciously – of how we want to be or what we want to change. Then through having that fixed idea, we miss the actual changes that we need to make. While our attention is riveted to the horizon, we miss where we are putting our feet. The more we can put aside any particular expectations or agendas, and the more we can engage wholeheartedly in the particular work or practices we are doing, then the better off we are in the long run.

Ajahn Amaro

Watch the mind

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Practice is separate from any posture. It is a matter of directly looking at the mind. This is wisdom….. You must examine yourself. Know who you are. Know your body and mind by simply watching. In sitting, in sleeping, in eating, know your limits. Use wisdom. The practice is not to try to achieve anything. Just be mindful of what is. The whole of meditation is looking directly at the mind.

So, be patient.  Live simply and be natural. Watch the mind. This is our practice.

Ajahn Chah

Every moment has potential

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Looking back, I can see that my biggest obstacle at the time was that I thought of meditation as something that would help me get rid of the parts of myself that I didn’t like. I sincerely hoped that meditation would lead me to happy, peaceful states of mind where panic and fear could not touch me. Yet what my father was leading me to was much more radical than that: He wanted me to see that the only way out of suffering is to move toward it; that the path of true awakening lies in experiencing every single moment, whether pleasant or painful, with complete and unconditional love.

Unconditional love is something we can immediately see the value of when it relates to others, but how often do we think of cultivating unconditional love for ourselves? How often do we not only accept, but even cherish our own tender spots and painful feelings?  What my father taught me in those early years was that when we simply let be and open ourselves to the richness of the present moment, we experience every thought, feeling, and experience as an expression of the mind’s luminous nature. From the perspective of awareness, no thought or emotion is any better or any worse than another. They are all manifestations of the mind’s infinite potential.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche