The Work of Love - Mark Nepo

It is not the work of love to change people,
or force their growth in our direction.
The work of love depends on giving others
a sense of safety in the world, nurturing their
confidence to lean into life and the unknown...

But how do we listen and be with those who
have fallen through the ice?
Stay close and keep them warm, resisting the
urge to prematurely solve the situation.  If
nothing can be done, sit with them and
withstand the urge to abandon those who
seem stuck.  Offer your tent and stay till
the way out presents itself, not forcing a rescue.

Mark Nepo
Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Prayer for a Suffering World

May we be free of physical suffering...
May we be free of mental anguish...
May we be free of all suffering
and the roots/causes 
of suffering...

May we be safe...
May we be at peace...

May we be well in body and mind...

May we live with ease...

From 2 Buddhist sayings...

~

Photo from the internet digitally altered

 

The Epitome of Truth - Alan Watts

Death is the epitome of the truth that in each moment we are
thrust into the unknown.  Here all clinging to security is
compelled to cease, and whenever the past is dropped away
and safety abandoned, life is renewed.  Death is the unknown
in which all of us lived before birth.

Nothing is more creative than death, since it is the whole secret
of life.  It means that the past must be abandoned, that the 
unknown cannot be avoided, that "I" cannot continue, and
that nothing can be ultimately fixed.  When a man knows this,
he lives for the first time in his life.  By holding his breath, he
loses it.  By letting it go he finds it.

Alan Watts
From: The Wisdom of Insecurity:
A Message for an Age of Anxiety

With thanks to Whiskey River

Photo from Beyond the Fields We Know