pickI will read anything Thich Nhat Hanh writes. I‘m not Buddhist, but he is a wonderful teacher. His words are ever a balm in a world where there is so much pain. This book is about our relationship with the living worlds around us, and how to get that connection back in order to heal ourselves and the other beings around us.
The best way to overcome [the fear of death]—so it seems to me— is to make your interest gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river— small at first, nearly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks ⬇️
Marcus Aurelius was among those who offered another way to come to grips with a prospective of nonbeing: the period after death, he pointed out, is like the period before birth. You didn‘t spend the billions of years before you were born in a state of anxiety and apprehension, because there was no “you” to be aware of anything. Looking back now, it doesn‘t seem frightening that there was once a time when you were not conscious. Why then ⬇️
If death marks a permanent end of your consciousness, then from your point of view when you die, the entire future of the universe (running into tens of billions of years or more) must telescope down not just into a night, as Socrates described, but into a fleeting instant. Even if the universe were to go through other cycles of expansion and contraction, then all of these cycles as far as you are concerned would happen in zero time. What ⬇️
pickA slim book but I read it slowly over days trying to fully appreciate his thoughts.
It also made me restart my meditation / breathwork practice. Hoping that it sticks. 🙏
"Books contain dead teaching."
"Worship requires that there be something which is bigger, higher, or beyond ourselves."
"The whole world is you."
"This whole practice requires faith."
"What you do with your mind also creates karma."
"It's real chanting that makes no sound and in really listening to it, there is no hearing."
"What you do and what happens to you are the same thing."
"He handles that cabbage leaf as if it were his child."
so-soIt wasn't a large investment. 73 pages + liturgy + appendix. And it yielded some wisdom. I was just expecting something as groundbreaking as Br. Lawrence's "Practice of the Presence of God". Although this has chapters on Life, Cooking, and Eating, it's masked by Buddhist terminology. It is a Buddhist book and I am not. The 73 pages of teaching didn't prepare me for the 17 pages of liturgy. The Short Meal Gatha will be spoken. I just expected more.
❤️ I got to visit with my niece (and sister and bro-in-law) this week! (Sorry for the sticker on her face, but #notmybaby)
🤎 Family hike at Al Quaal
🧡 A visit to Lakenenland, our local sculpture park (https://lakenenland.com/)
💛 Local book haul
💚 MisterInBlue and the Familiars
#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii
#5JoysFriday:
1. My sister & niece visiting
2. My sweet grand-niece hanging out with my dad and showing off how she can count to ten
3. This amazing granola I made: https://www.seriouseats.com/eleven-madison-park-granola-salty-recipe
4. Listening to this pre-release album: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andrewpeterson/andrew-peterson-presents-the...
5. Beauty from Veronica in the Fens and autumn vibes from Frog & Toad
? The Golden Girls (Need I say more? ? )
? John Cusack movies while snuggling with MisterInBlue. Some couples have "their song." We have John Cusack movies. ?
? https://youtu.be/92i5m3tV5XY?si=lbjJePHApihV-QPE ???
