How do geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we humans know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within if only we would listen to it, that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.
Elizabeth Kubler Ross
The value of a life does not depend on the place we occupy;
It depends on the way we occupy that place.
Therese of Lisieux
Men build their dreams as they build their circles of friends. God is in the bits and pieces of Everyday. A kiss here and a laugh again, and sometimes tears; A pearl necklace around the neck of poverty.
Today being Bloomsday, I Felt I should post something from an Irish writer. Not Joyce, but rather I chose the poet Patrick Kavanagh, whose poems celebrate the ways in which the most trivial things reveal God. He saw the sacred in the small details of everyday life and in the unexpected places of ordinary events. He believed that meaning can be found within and in the mundane tasks of each day, even in the poor landscape where he lived in Ireland. For him, there was no task or moment in the day which could not become an occasion for grace and where meaning could be found.
This reminds me today to try to pay attention. When I am not conscious of this, I can be pulled by more exciting or demanding sights on my journey, sounds, fashions, headlines, and the advertisements that are specially designed to capture my attention. I can get distracted by my desire to be part of something more stimulating elsewhere and neglect the quiet routine in my daily life. These big attractions always suggests that more and somewhere else is better, that our lives are not complete until we have what we feel is missing. However, often what we need is not missing; We do not have to go far, but can find it right in front of us, so we need to cultivate the vital work of noticing in our practice. As the quote below reminds us, not paying attention is a type of terminal sleepwalking through life, missing out on all the richness presented to us each day:
The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness. The more we do it, the stronger these qualities become. How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go. We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart:Heart Advice for Difficult Times
When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
David Whyte, Sweet Darkness
When the heart is undivided, everything we encounter becomes our practice. Service becomes a sacred exchange, like breathing in and breathing out. We receive a physical and spiritual sustenance in the world, and this is like breathing in. Then, because each of us has certain gifts to offer, part of our happiness in this world is to give something back, and this is like breathing out. One friend calls this ‘simple human kindness’. Our work, I think, is to get out of the way of our own innate wisdom and compassion- that simple human kindness – and allow our inborn ability to see what another needs, to serve the dying and the living.
Frank Ostaseski, Founder, Zen Hospice Project
Mindfulbalance 