Tag: Present moment

Be struck by life today

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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/)

Sometime today drop into the calm beneath

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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

Accepting what we are

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Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,
we are asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.

There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.

Mark Nepo, Accepting this

When weakness becomes a place of joy

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Today we had a beautiful early Spring morning,  and it was a lovely background for the second session of the MBSR Programme where the majority of participants are volunteers for the new Hospice soon to open in Geneva.  I was  reflecting on the type of presence we have with others, and how to create a space to tune into them, especially when they are weak. And later one I was reflecting in my own life how the fundamental lesson is learning to accept our own weakness and what a freedom it is  when we  see that we are accepted and loved. Sadly,  we often pick up the opposite message when we are little, that our worth comes from our competence and what we can do for others. It is great to let go of that and realize that we are accepted even when we are at our worst,  when we  make mistakes, even when we let others down. That is the greatest joy, a letting go and an end to striving.

Our lives are a mystery of growth from weakness to weakness, from the weakness of the little baby to the weakness of the aged. Throughout our lives we are prone to fatigue, sickness and accidents. Weakness is at the heart of each one of us. Weakness becomes a place of chaos and confusion, if in our weakness we are not wanted; it becomes a place of peace and joy, if we are accepted, listened to, appreciated and loved.

If we deny our weakness and the reality of death, if we want to be powerful and strong always, we deny part of our being, we live an illusion.

Jean Vanier Becoming Human

Being open to whatever happens today

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It’s the rose’s unfolding …… that creates the desire to see –
In every colour and circumstance, may the eyes be open for what comes.

Ghalib, For the raindrop

….and endures all kinds of change

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If we think of happiness as a way of being, as something that represents a state of flourishing, of fulfillment, of a well-being that endures through all events in life, even all different kinds of emotions and mental states, something that gives you the inner resources to deal with whatever comes your way—pleasant, unpleasant circumstances, helpful circumstances, adverse circumstances—something that gives you some kind of platform or way of being that’s behind all that, and that gives you the resources to deal with all that.

Matthieu Ricard