Who was the first man to see the moon on the river bank?
In what year did the moon first shine on man?
Human lives ceaselessly come and go, generation after generation,
but the moon and the river stay constant year after year.
I don’t know who the moon and the river are waiting for,
I only see the waters of the Yangtze flowing away.
Zhnag Ruoxu, Tang Dynasty poet.
photo des calhoun
Kindness in words creates confidence,
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu
If we can be quieter, more in the moment with what is actually happening, a world of perception opens up for us based on where we are, not on where we one day hope to be. “Nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small,” said artist Georgia O’Keeffe. “We haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” If we learn to take a little more time and be more fully aware of just where we are, we might see many new flowers and have many more friends.
Sharon Salzberg, The Power of Patience
photo from catriona.net
It’s really important to be careful and attentive to how much one gets swept up into the busyness. Those are two different things — actually doing something and the frantic, busy, scattered energy that you bring to the task. Try to watch and reflect on the feeling behind what you’re doing. What is the energy behind it? Recognize where the feeling of agitation comes from. So much depends upon staying with the breathing — breathing into the activity of what we’re doing. Sometimes it helps to step back and slow down, because often less gets accomplished the more frantic you become, in terms of actual physical accomplishment, as well as in your sense of enjoyment and harmony with others. Often it’s more the attitude that we carry that’s problematic because you can only do one thing at a time, anyway. We carry around in our minds all the things we think we have to do and that stirs up this frantic energy. So just breathe into what we are doing, be with it, not getting too swept up. Make the breath a force for settling.
Ajahn Pasanno, Breathe into busy activity
Every day is a journey,
and the journey itself is home.
Matsuo Bashô, Oku no Hosomichi (1689).
photo Graham Cole
“The Island that you cannot go beyond” is the metaphor for this state of being awake and aware, as opposed to the concept of becoming awake and aware. [It]….is very powerful, because it points to the principle of an awareness that you can’t get beyond. It’s very simple, very direct, and you can’t conceive it. You have to trust it. You have to trust this simple ability that we all have to be fully present and fully awake, and begin to recognize the grasping and the ideas we have taken on about ourselves, about the world around us, about our thoughts and perceptions and feelings. The way of mindfulness is the way of recognizing conditions just as they are. We simply recognize and acknowledge their presence, without blaming them or judging them or criticizing them or praising them. We allow them to be, the positive and the negative both.
Ajahn Sumedho, A difficulty with the word nibbana
photo of full moon over the Skellig islands, off Co Kerry, by bloodybucaneer
Mindfulbalance 