happiness

Everything Depends on Your Steps

Gill Washington Buddhist Writings, Joy, Life, Mindfulness, Peace, Spiritual Writers, Spirituality, Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes , , , 0 Comment

From: The Long Road Turns to Joy

By Thich Nhat Hanh

The seed of mindfulness is in us, but we usually forget to water it.
We think that happiness is possible only in the future-when we get
a house, a car, a Ph.D. We struggle in our mind and body, and we
don’t touch the peace and joy that are available right now-the blue
sky, the green leaves, the eyes of our beloved. What is most
important? Many people have passed exams and bought houses and
cars, and yet they are still unhappy. What is most important in life is
to find peace and to share it with others. To have peace, you can
begin by walking peacefully. Everything depends on your steps.

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Taking Personal Responsibility

Gill Washington Ajahn Sumedho, Buddhist Writings, Joy, Life, Mindfulness, Spirituality , , , , 0 Comment

Excerpted from The Mind and the Way

By Ajahn Sumedho

With mindfulness, we can be independent of the positions other people are taking. We can stand on our own two feet and take responsibility for acting in a virtuous way, regardless of what the rest of sociery is doing.I can be kind, generous, and loving toward you, and that is a joy to me.But if I make my happiness dependent upon your being kind to me, then it will always be threatened, because if you aren’t doing what I like-behaving the way I want you to-then I’m going to be unhappy. So then, my happiness is always under threat because the world might not behave as I want it to.

It’s clear that I would spend the rest of my life being terribly disappointed if I expected everything to change-if I expected everybody to become virtuous, wars to stop, money not to be wasted, governments to be compassionate, sharing, and giving-everything to be just exactly the way I want it! Actually, I don’t expect to see very much of that in my lifetime, but there is no point in being miserable about it ; happiness based on what I want is not all that important.

Joy isn’t dependent on getting things, or on the world going the way you want, or on people behaving the way they should, or on their giving you all the things you like and want. Joyfulness isn’t dependent upon anything but your own willingness to be generous, kind, and loving. It’s that mature experience of giving, sharing, and developing the science of goodness. Virtuousness is the joy we can experience in this human realm. So, although what society is doing or what everyone else is doing is beyond my control-I can’t go around making everything how I want it- still, I can be kind, generous, and patient,and do good, and develop virtue. That I can do, and that’s worth doing, and not something anyone can stop me from doing. However rotten or corrupted society is doesn’t make any difference to our ability to be virtuous and to do good.

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Friendship

Gill Washington Henry David Thoreau, Love, Poems, Truth , , , 0 Comment

Henry David Thoreau

I think awhile of Love, and while I think,
Love is to me a world,
Sole meat and sweetest drink,
And close connecting link
Tween heaven and earth.

I only know it is, not how or why,
My greatest happiness;
However hard I try,
Not if I were to die,
Can I explain.

I fain would ask my friend how it can be,
But when the time arrives,
Then Love is more lovely
Than anything to me,
And so I’m dumb.

For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak,
But only thinks and does;
Though surely out ’twill leak
Without the help of Greek,
Or any tongue.

A man may love the truth and practise it,
Beauty he may admire,
And goodness not omit,
As much as may befit
To reverence.

But only when these three together meet,
As they always incline,
And make one soul the seat,
And favorite retreat,
Of loveliness;

When under kindred shape, like loves and hates
And a kindred nature,
Proclaim us to be mates,
Exposed to equal fates
Eternally;

And each may other help, and service do,
Drawing Love’s bands more tight,
Service he ne’er shall rue
While one and one make two,
And two are one;

In such case only doth man fully prove
Fully as man can do,
What power there is in Love
His inmost soul to move
Resistlessly.

______

Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side,
Withstand the winter’s storm,
And spite of wind and tide,
Grow up the meadow’s pride,
For both are strong

Above they barely touch, but undermined
Down to their deepest source,
Admiring you shall find
Their roots are intertwined
Insep’rably.

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