We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
Tag: Present moment
Remember this today
No matter what the situation
we are responsible for our own mind states
Joseph Goldstein
Letting life flow
How can you follow the course
of your life
if you do not let it flow?
Lao Tzu
How to be serene
All the world religions and wisdom traditions come to the same conclusion: True contentment comes about through working out, through the twists and turns of one’s own life, a personal understanding of these deeply different realities.
For whoever has learned to love,
for whoever has learned to suffer,
life is imbued with serene beauty
Br Roger
All directions have a meaning
No matter what stories our mind may tell us in times of difficulty, all things are ordered and return to their home. We are calm deep down when we realize that our days have meaning in an overall rhythm and we are not isolated but have a place in the overall “family of things”
The wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
A fruitful loneliness
It is a recurrent theme in human history, and in the different wisdom traditions on days like Good Friday, that the places where we are hurt are often the places where we grow the most. Thus the places of darkness are difficult and fruitful at the same time:
Life may be brimming over with experiences,
but somewhere, deep inside,
all of us carry a vast and fruitful loneliness wherever we go.
Etty Hillesum
