How much of the day are you aware – just basically aware of what life is presenting – rather than being lost in waking sleep, in being identified with whatever you’re doing, almost as if you didn’t exist?How much of your energy is used to fortify a particular self-image, or to simply please others in order to gain approval, instead of devoting your energy to living a genuine life?
Ezra Bayda, At Home in the Muddy Water
Pleasant conditions change into unpleasant ones, and unpleasant conditions eventually become pleasant. We should just keep this awareness of impermanence and be at peace with the way things are, not demanding that they be otherwise. But most of all we should be at peace with ourselves – that is the big lesson to learn in life. It is really hard to be at peace with oneself. I find that most people have a lot of self-aversion. It is much better to be at peace with our own bodies and minds than anything else, and not demand that they be perfect, that we be perfect, or that everything be good. We can be at peace with the good and the bad.
Ajahn Sumedho
Photo Harald Hoyer
Grateful seeing is the ability to look first for what is good and working in our lives without minimizing or denying the hardships or challenges that are also present. Many traditional societies hold the perspective, or world-view, that what has been given to us ultimately ignites growth and strengthens us. Individuals who are viewed as seers are highly respected, honored, and valued for their gifts of insight, vision, and grateful seeing. We, too, can learn to be seers — seers of the blessings, learnings, mercies, and protections that surround us everyday. In Spring, we open to the bounty and goodness that is present in our lives, any pockets of ingratitude that once seemed large in our imaginations become dwarfed — nearly nonexistent. It is important to remember that whatever we need to rectify in our lives is often small in proportion to all the benefits we have extended toward and received from others. All the good intentions, prayers, good deeds, and kind words we have offered others are still with us: they cannot be taken away, and this is a great source of encouragement.
Angeles Arrien
If we become addicted to the external, our interiority will haunt us. We will become hungry with a hunger no image, person or deed can still. In order to keep our balance, we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new together. No one else can undertake this task for you. You are the one and the only threshold of an inner world. This wholesomeness is holiness. To be holy is to be natural, to befriend worlds that come to balance in you.
John O’Donohue, AnamChara
When the mind is coloured by a dualistic perspective, every experience – even moments of joy and happiness – is bounded by some sense of limitation. There is always a but lurking in the background. One kind of but is the but of difference: “Oh my birthday cake was wonderful but I would have liked chocolate cake instead of carrot cake”. Then there is the but of “better”: “I love my new house, but my friend John’s place is bigger and has much better light”. And finally there is the but of fear: “I can’t stand my job, but in this market how will I ever find another one”…I’ve begun to recognize..that feelings of limitation, anxiety fear and so on are just so much neuronal gossip. They are in essence, habits. And habits can be unlearned.
Yongey Mingpur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living
Mindfulness, seeing clearly, means awakening to the happiness of the uncomplicated moment. We complicate moments. Hardly anything happens without the mind spinning it up into an elaborate production. It’s the elaboration that makes life more difficult than it needs to be.
Sylvia Boorstein
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