Always our rationalization is the same –“Once this situation is remedied, then I will be happy.”
But it never works that way in reality: The goal is achieved, but the person who reaches it is not the same person who dreamed it.
The goal was static, but the person’s identity was dynamic.
Philip Moffitt
photo twilightsojourn
Mindfulness also means to remember… what? Mindfulness pulls us back to a greater living reality, reminding us that life is more than our own repetitive thoughts or fears or desires. Rooted in the present tense world of the body rather than the thoughts, the strangely named mindfulness (bodyfulness? Lifefulness?) delivers us from the hellish centrifugal force of our own egos.
Tracy Cochran, The Open Door
photo justin 1569
There’s a story that Ed Brown, the Zen chef , tells about his early days with his teacher, Suzuki Roshi. Ed was the head cook at Tassajara Zen Mountain Centre in California in the 1960s and was well known for his volatile temper. Once, in a fury, he went to his teacher and complained about the state of the kitchen: people didn’t clean up properly; people talked too much; people were distracted and unmindful. It was chaos on a daily basis. Suzuki Roshi’s reply was simple: “Ed, if you want a calm kitchen, calm your mind”
Found in Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, with thanks to Bianca for the loan of the book
photo jeppestown
Often we find it easier to think our way around things
rather than to feel our way through them
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
photo rudi winter
It is hard to feel afraid without thinking something is going wrong. We readily react by judging ourselves and others, in an attempt to escape the pain of fear. It doesn’t work – neither does running off into the wilds. Even sacred places are deemed to fail us if we are motivated by a wish to escape. Can we experience the fear sensation without ‘becoming’ afraid? Fear is still fear but it is perceived from an expanded, less cramped and less threatened awareness. We can even begin to see that fear too is ‘just so’. A non-judgemental, whole body-mind acknowledgement of the condition of fear, here and now, can transform our pain into freedom. Willingness to meet ourselves where we find ourselves is the way.
Ajahn Munindo, Dhammapada Reflections
photo russavia
Not always easy to do when a piece of work or a meeting does not go to plan, but since we often cannot really evaluate something until much later, it is best to rest in the present, and not in a story about what it means, or with the passing mood which it provokes.
For us, as people wanting to live a full, unrestricted, adventurous, real kind of life, there is a concrete instruction we can follow: see what is. Acknowledge it without judging it as right or wrong. Let it go and come back to the present moment. Whatever comes up, see what it is without calling it right or wrong. Acknowledge it. See it clearly without judgment and let it go. Come back to the present moment.
Pema Chodron, The wisdom of No Escape
photo takahashi hososhima
Mindfulbalance 