Lost my smile, but don't worry!

--Thich Nhat Hanh:

When I see someone smile, I know immediately that he or she is dwelling in awareness. [...] Our smile will bring happiness to us and to those around us. Even if we spend a lot of money on gifts for everyone in our family, nothing we buy could give them as much happiness as the gift of our awareness, our smile. And this precious gift costs nothing. At the end of a retreat in California, a friend wrote this poem:

I have lost my smile, 

but don't worry. 

The dandelion has it.

If you have lost your smile and yet are still capable of seeing that a dandelion is keeping it for you, the situation is not too bad. You still have enough mindfulness to see that the smile is there.

You only need to breathe consciously one or two times and you will recover your smile. The dandelion is one member of your community of friends. It is there, quite faithful, keeping your smile for you.

In fact, everything around you is keeping your smile for you.

The unlimited is already perfect

You are perfect, only you don’t know it. Learn to know yourself and you will discover wonders. All you need is already within you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of the love you bear for yourself; all I plead with you is this: make love of yourself perfect. Deny yourself nothing – give yourself infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond.

-- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 

Allow

“Allow” by Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.

The only safety lies in letting it all in –

the wild and weak –

fear, fantasies, failures, and success.

When loss rips off the doors of the heart

or sadness veils your vision with despair,

practice becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your known way of being,

the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.

May I be happy

Notes from the cushion
Breathing in energy. Deep long breaths. May I be happy, waiting for what comes to me. Steady base half lotus. Focused, open, listening. 

Being here

It's not about feeling good and enjoying. It's about being in the wonder of everything, appreciating and being here for it. 

Let everything be your teacher

It's really easy to get stuck inside emotions. To be the sadness or anger instead of just observing it. I try to practice not getting so entangled in emotions. To let everything be my teacher. 

"If your every day practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught."                                                                                 

                                                                                                  ~  Pema Chodron

Telephone meditation

I WILL NOW PROPOSE TO YOU A MEDITATION that you can try this evening, telephone meditation. Every time the phone rings, it creates a small vibration in you. There is not true peace—there is a hint of worry: Who is it that’s calling? Is this going to be good news or bad news? You cannot hold yourself back and you run immediately to the phone. In Plum Village, we remain where we are and we consider the sound of the telephone to be like the bell of mindfulness. “Breathing in—I am calming myself; breathing out—I am smiling.” Then we go to the telephone in the style of walking meditation, but before that we practice mindful breathing. 

In our community, every time we hear a bell, we stop—we stop our thinking, we stop our conversation, we stop our work; and we begin breathing—an inbreath, then an outbreath—and it is the same thing whether it is the telephone ringing or the clock chiming. In this way we have lots of opportunities to return to ourselves, to our true home, here and now, to touch peace.

                                                  from the book True Love, by Thich Nhat Hanh