I am always doing that which I cannot do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.
Picasso
Just do it
Tag: Present moment
Derailing the sense of lack
Enlightenment involves derailing and deconstructing the sense of lack.
It is getting rid of that piece of psychology that in every moment says, “There’s something else that I should be having right now. There’s something else that I should be right now. There’s somewhere else that I could go right now. There’s somebody else who’s got it better than me right now. I’m not complete right now. I need to be something right now”.
Ajahn Sucitto, Parami: Ways to Cross Life’s Floods
Be happy
One of my meditation teachers used to end each of our interviews … and say to me, “Remember, Sylvia, be happy.” I actually for a long time thought it was a salutation, like “have a good day” or something that you say just in a routine kind of a way, and it took me a long time to realize that it was an instruction, “Be happy.”
Not only that it was an instruction but that it was a wisdom transmission – that happiness was a possibility. I understand that happiness to mean, the happiness of a mind that’s alert, that’s awake to the amazing potential of being a person in a life, with a mind that’s opened, that sees everything that’s going on, and realizes what an amazing possibility this is, and with a heart that’s open, the heart that responds naturally as hearts do, in compassion, in connection with friendliness, with love, with consolation when it needs to:
That that’s the happiness of life – a mind that’s awake, a heart that’s engaged... I want to say that really what I think about when my teacher said to me, “Be happy,” is be awake, be alert, stay in your life, stay present to it. She said at another point, “It’s your life, Sylvia, don’t miss it.” That’s been a very important thing.
Sylvia Boorstein’s keynote speech Stanford University 2005
Decide how to behave
Sometimes the situation calls for change behaviours and other times it calls for letting go behaviours, sometimes to act, sometimes to not act, sometimes to hold on, sometimes to let go.
If you can’t stop the world,
Stop your mind.
Ajahn Amaro’s summary of Ajahn Chah’s teaching
See your value
Prophets come and go for one reason, to say:
“Human beings, you have a great value inside your form, a seed.
Be led by the rose inside the rose“.
Rumi, Inward Sky
Sunday Quote: Let things be
If the eye never sleeps, all dreams vanish by themselves.
If the mind stops making discriminations,
The ten thousand things are as they are.
Seng T’san, The Third Zen Patriarch, 529 – 606, The Hsin Hsin Ming.
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