When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.
In opening we can see how many times we have mistaken small identities and fearful beliefs for our true nature and how limiting this is. We can touch with great compassion the pain from the contracted identities that we and others have created in the world.
When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.
When our identity expands to include everything, we find a peace with the dance of the world. The ocean of life rises and falls within us – birth and death, joy and pain, it is all ours, and our heart is full and empty, large enough to embrace it all.
Whatever we cultivate in times of ease, we gather as strength for times of change.
One of the essential tasks for living a wise life is letting go. Letting go is the path to freedom. It is only by letting go of the hopes, the fears, the pain, the past, the stories that have a hold on us that we can quiet our mind and open our heart.
Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.
The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.
But forgiveness is the act of not putting anyone out of your heart, even those who are acting out of deep ignorance or out of confusion and pain.
Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss and hiding from the basic truths of the natural world and of our own nature.
The work of your heart, the work of taking time, to listen, to help, is also your gift to the whole of the world.
The questions asked at the end of lie are very simple ones: Did I love well? Did I love the people around me, my community, the earth, in a deep way? And perhaps, Did I live fully? Did I offer myself to life?
Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.
The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.
In a society that almost demands life at double time, speed and addictions numb us to our own experience. In such a society, it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or the earth where we live.
When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present – our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love – everything that moves us most deeply.
Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.
We can bring a heart of understanding and compassion to a world that needs it so much.
When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.
Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it’s not like you’re going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.