Ksana Pratiyogi Parinama Aparanta Nirgrahyah Kramah
-Yoga Sutra of Patanjali 4.33
There is no longer a need to focus on the past, or even the future. All unfolds as it should. The yogi finds peace in the present moment.
Time Is Now
Let. Life. Turn. You.
“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”
-Rumi
Inward Music
Love Light
In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. ~Rumi
For Seekers
What you seek is seeking you.
-Rumi
Practice Notes …
“I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn’t create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.”
-Ram Dass
Hope and Fear
“One of the classic Buddhist teachings on hope and fear concerns what are known as the eight worldly dharmas. These are four pairs of opposites–four things that we like and become attached to and four things that we don’t like and try to avoid. The basic message is that when we are caught up in the eight worldly dharmas, we suffer.
First, we like pleasure; we are attached to it. Conversely, we don’t like pain. Second, we like and are attached to praise. We try to avoid criticism and blame. Third, we like and are attached to fame. We dislike and try to avoid disgrace. Finally, we are attached to gain, to getting what we want. We don’t like losing what we have.
According to this very simple teaching, becoming immersed in these four pairs of opposites – pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace, and gain and loss – is what keeps us stuck in the pain of samsara.
We might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disgrace. A more practical approach is to get to know them intimately, see how they hook us, see how they color our perception of reality, see how they aren’t all that solid. Then the eight worldly dharmas become the means for growing wiser as well as kinder and more content.”
-from Comfortable With Uncertainty, by Pema Chodron
The Drama of Original Choice
“The drama of original choice is that it goes on moment by moment for an entire lifetime.”
-Simone De Beauvoir
Source For Soaring
There is joy, a winelike freedom that dissolves the mind and restores the spirit, and there is manly fortitude like the king’s, a reasonableness that accepts the bewildered lostness.
But meditate now on steadfastness and clarity, and let those be the wings that lift and soar through the celestial spheres.
-Rumi
Meditation and the Mind. Keep it Simple.
“The Buddha taught that the mind is wild and the human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. But through good meditation techniques, a simple attitude, and unconditional friendliness toward ourselves, we can work toward taming the one thing that causes our suffering: the mind.”
-from the Pema Chodron Foundation Newsletter