2. Wisdom from Fr. Alfred D’Souza, a quote shared by Courtney Carver,
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last in dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
In my experience, one of the greatest litmus tests of spiritual maturation –that is, how well your practice is working–comes when we bump up against the challenges. Embodying–in thought, word, and deed–what it is you profess to practice/study is easy when life goes according to your plan. But the real measure–and arguably, the greatest teacher–arises from our responses to life’s inevitable disappointments, frustrations, and obstacles. If your response to difficult times is to react (re-act, reproduce) with the same old habitual behavior, based on worn out, old narratives about yourself (or others), then your practice becomes that much more vital; your practice can be what creates space and awareness between the feelings we have and the conclusion we draw about them. If you can remain consciously committed to your center, your Self, when the rug gets pulled up beneath you…and you can be kind and spacious and patient when things don’t go “your way,” you will come to know your progress more honestly than any other time.
9. Wisdom from Maya Angelou, “In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.”
12. Wisdom from Lao Tzu, “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
14. Wisdom from Geneen Roth, “Forgiving yourself expresses a willingness to learn from your fragility and your fallibility instead of pretending that they are not there,” and,
Of this I am certain: Something happens every time I stop fighting with the way things are. Something happens to every one of my students when they stop running their familiar programs about fear and deficiency and emptiness. I don’t know what to call this turn of events or the freshness that follows it but I know what it feels like: it feels like relief. It feels like infinite goodness. Like a distillation of every sweet fragrance, every astonishing beauty and every haunting melody you’ve ever heard . It feels like the essence of tenderness compassion joy peace dark starry night dazzling day. Like love itself. And in the moment you feel it you recognize that you are it and that you’ve been here all along, waiting for your return.
20. Yoga with Adriene. I really like her teaching style, and she’s got some great free videos, if you are interested in practicing alone but with instruction.
Image from this morning’s walk. Spring in Colorado can be confusing…
1. Rearranged from Kat McNally. Like I told her, she’s half way around the world and the details of her daily life are so different, but ever since I discovered her, I’ve felt like she’s my mirror. And this, the idea of being “rearranged” feels so spot on. Dear Universe, I don’t care how you arrange it, but please let me be able to one day tell Kat to her sweet face how much I adore her. Love you. Love, Me.
Water, stories, the body
all the things we do are mediums
that hide and show what is hidden.
Study them
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know
and then not.
7. Truthbombs from Danielle LaPorte, “You’re having an effect,” and “You’ll do it when you’re ready.” P.S. I love how I collect these to share with you and never see the connection between them until I copy and paste them into a post, see them together. It’s a weird sort of magic.
8. Wisdom from Geneen Roth,
What do you believe would happen if you allowed yourself to feel your feelings instead of avoid them or swallow them with food?
Where in your body are your feelings located? What color are they? What texture? What shape? If you don’t know, take a wild guess. Assume you’re innately sane, extraordinarily wise, and your job is to ask questions. You don’t have to manufacture answers. They have been there all the time, sleeping under the brown grocery bag of your broken heart, but you haven’t looked.
Every time you feel stuck, every time you think you know why you are doing something, but you can’t seem to make yourself do it differently, write a dialogue with yourself.
Be open to the outcome. Assume nothing. Be ready for anything. You will be constantly surprised.
And this,
To discover what you really believe, pay attention to the way you act—and to what you do when things don’t go the way you think they should.
Pay attention to what you value. Pay attention to how and on what you spend your time. Your money. And pay attention to the way you eat.
You will quickly discover if you believe the world is a hostile place and if you need to be in control of the immediate universe for things to go smoothly. You will discover if you believe there is not enough to go around and if taking more than you need is necessary for survival. You will find out if you believe that being quiet is unbearable, if being alone means being lonely. If feeling your feelings means being destroyed. If being vulnerable is for sissies or if opening to love is a big mistake.
And you will discover how you use food to express each one of these core beliefs.
9. A poem from theDalai Lama, “Never Give Up.”
No matter what is going on
Never give up
Develop the heart
Too much energy in your country
Is spent developing the mind
Instead of the heart
Be compassionate
Not just to your friends
But to everyone
Be compassionate
Work for peace
In your heart and in the world
Work for peace
And I say again
Never give up
No matter what is going on around you
Never give up
The Buddhist approach is: Just do it, on the spot, rather than reliance on the great white hope that something just might happen, and therefore, we should push toward it. The Buddhist approach is not really based on hope. It’s based on just sitting and doing it on the spot. Then a person’s mind begins to take a turn more toward experience, rather than faith alone.
18. A Living Worth Scraping on Elephant Journal. I always feel like articles like this need a disclaimer, or a post script that explains that while this is true, that it would be lovely if people did work they love, someone also has to clean up — take out the trash, pick up the poop, clean the bathroom, change the diapers — and that we all need to pitch in and help keep things together, even when that sometimes requires we do things we don’t really “like.”
Once you hear the Dharma, it ruins you for non-Dharma.
And,
The problem is not that we are hurling ourselves into the unknown. We are always hurling ourselves into the unknown. The problem is that we think otherwise.
24. Susan Piver on compassion, “Compassion is the ability to hold both love and pain in your heart, simultaneously.”
26. Wisdom from Mara Glatzel, “You are a worthy contender for the life that you are yearning for, but the only one who can truly grant you the permission to live it, is you.”
28. When I am Among the Trees, a poem from Mary Oliver.
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.,/p>
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
29. What People Say When Asked To “Tell The World Anything” on Huffington Post. “The producers of a recent video series place a single camera in a public part of New York City — Washington Square Park, in this case — and hang a sign telling people to ‘Tell the World Anything.'”
1. Creating a Lovely Morning on Zen Habits.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 