Today, these are what my meditation time threw up:
1. Be kind and respectful to each other and respect each other's differences. (From Advanced Style)
2. The Elders say: Lead a simple life. This doesn't necessarily mean poor, it means simple. There are some things that make life complicated such as needing control, needing power or being resentful or angry. These things make complications happen. (Native American Wisdom)
3. If you really want a quiet mind, start making everything in your life a practice.
- Practice not judging yourself.
- Practice being okay with whatever happens - with negative thoughts and bad things that happen, with a noisy mind, with interruptions and distractions....with whatever happens - bad/sad/ugly/good/brilliant/happy....
- Practice relaxing.
You may not be able to do this at first, but it will happen. And when it happens, you will feel a click in your brain. On the outside, you will still be you. But on the inside, you will be overflowing with tranquility. Because, when you are okay with whatever happens, you don’t hang on to them. In other words, you have learned the most important lesson of all - to let things go. (From The Tiny Buddha)
4. And.....this poem.
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.
In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.
The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.
No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then..........(From Aimless Love by Billy Collins, NINE HORSES)