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Befriending all beings, all experiences..befriending all experiences. ~ Feldman?
Sharon Salzburg: Mindfulness (1995 book) ~ "Cultivate a heart as wide as the world"
The Celtic Twilight Quotes Showing 1-30 of 55
Earth, Fire and Water
Some French writer that I read when I was a boy, said that the desert
went into the heart of the Jews in their wanderings and made them what
they are. I cannot remember by what argument he proved them to be even
yet the indestructible children of earth, but it may well be that the
elements have their children. If we knew the Fire Worshippers better we
might find that their centuries of pious observance have been rewarded,
and that the fire has given them a little of its nature; and I am
certain that the water, the water of the seas and of lakes and of mist
and rain, has all but made the Irish after its image. Images form
themselves in our minds perpetually as if they were reflected in some
pool. We gave ourselves up in old times to mythology, and saw the Gods
everywhere. We talked to them face to face, and the stories of that
communion are so many that I think they outnumber all the like stories
of all the rest of Europe. Even to-day our country people speak with
the dead and with some who perhaps have never died as we understand
death; and even our educated people pass without great difficulty into
the condition of quiet that is the condition of vision. We can make our
minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may
see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a
clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet. Did not
the wise Porphyry think that all souls come to be born because of
water, and that "even the generation of images in the mind is from
water"?
WB Yeats ~ 1902.
Suehila in response to Hugh says: I have to disagree- all times are suffering. There is nothing different today then a year ago or 10 years ago or 100 years ago. It depends where you sit. Palestinians have experienced every day for over 100 years what Ukrainians are experiencing. The difference is the method but not any different. Please. All times are difficult. Millions of Palestinians have suffered as refugees for multiple generations. That conflict is a result of European action, interference and racism. Imagine that suffering. Que sera sera. I have faith in the Ukrainian people but this is no different than Tibet, we just happen to be more connected to it.
My mind is like still water - WB Yeats
"My religion is love" ~ Ibn Al arabi
Four qualityies - Mind
-- the heart practices: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity
from "Boundless Heart" - Christina Feldman
'Aversion is not wrong, it simply compounds pain.' the better way is to 'open our heart'...instead of getting caught up in our 'survival based' or 'fear-based' responses.
Returning again and again to the commitment and intention to abide in kindness with all moments of experience.
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn:
If only it were all so simple...if only the insidious people were somewhere else...problem is that the line btw good and evil cuts through every person. Who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? This is why we need to train our own heart.
Encountering suffering: if heart is open...what arises is empathy, caring, desiring to relieve suffering. When lovingkindness meets happiness of others, healthy response is 'joy'...mudita in Pali language...appreciative joy.
Equanimity, lovingkindness, joy, compassion~
These practices help hold us when we are suffering...'May I filled with lovingkindness'
(Hugh is teaching a retreat at Kripalu in Massachusetts workshop in May ~ theme is the 4 qualities which can support us. )
Naomi Shehab Nye writes 'Kindness' ~ stunning poem / verse offered again by Hugh on closing.
