If you set up feeling good
as what you have to be feeling,
then you are creating another thing
you are failing at.
Mark Epstein
Unreal expectations
Tag: Present moment
Another 24 hours
unbeing dead isn’t being alive.
e.e. cummings
Judgments about how we are doing
Forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life
Your life situation exists in time;
Your life is now.
Your life situation is mind-stuff;
Your life is real.
Eckhart Tolle
Sunday Quote: a pure open sky
Finally some brighter mornings here in Ireland. We can often get stuck in a narrow view of ourselves.
The Buddha said, “O Nobly born, remember the pure open sky of your own true nature
Return to it. Trust it.
It is home.
Jack Kornfield, A Mind like Sky
Rest
Resting in the openness of mind.
Sometimes it’s called not knowing. Why would we have to know everything all the time? Why do we have to be so knowledgeable, so smart, so in control? We don’t! There’s no need to figure everything out. We can just be alive. We can breathe in and breathe out and let go and just trust our life, trust our body. Our body and our life know what to do. The problem is to let them do it, to relax and let them guide us.
Of course life is complicated and we have many things to work out.. But also we can find a place of refuge sometimes – in our own life, in our own breath, in our own presence. We don’t have to search for a powerful guru or a major meditation center or find the best book or method. We can just return right now to ourselves. To our actual concrete presence, in the body, in the breath, in the mind and heart. If we had the confidence that this were possible at any moment, then we would feel much more at ease with our lives and it would be easier and happier to take care of all our complicated problems. We could do it with far less anxiety and stress. We would trust our life.
The practice of resting in the openness of mind at any time during the day can be quite powerful. “Rest in the openness of mind”. Getting used to this phrase and its meaning so that it can be an inspiration for you, so that you can bring it up at any time during the day, is a powerful advantage.
Norman Fischer, Training in Compassion: Zen teachings on the Practice of Lojong
Just this is enough
Renunciation is “Just this is enough”. I really like that as a description of renunciation. Can you meet your life just as it is and say “Just this is enough”? Or are you always asking for something more? That’s where suffering comes in: “This isn’t enough. I need something more”. Then it always feels as if something is lacking. How can we meet our life as it is wholeheartedly, just like this? This is what our practice is: that is finding your home in the midst of homelessness, right here.
Zenkei Blanche Hartman, Seeds for a Boundless Life
Mindfulbalance 