Generally speaking, the human species does make things a big deal. Our problems are a big deal for us. So we need to make space for an attitude of honoring things completely and at the same time not making them a big deal. It’s a paradoxical idea, but holding these two attitudes simultaneously is the source of enormous joy: we hold a sense of respect toward all things, along with the ability to let go. In Buddhist terms, the space that opens here is referred to as ‘shunyata,’ or emptiness. But there’s nothing nihilistic about this emptiness. It’s basically just a feeling of lightness. When you begin to see life from the point of view that everything is spontaneously arising and that things aren’t ‘coming at you’ or ‘trying to attack you,’ in any given moment you will likely experience more space and more room to relax into. So shunyata refers to the fact that we actually have a seed of spaciousness, of freshness, openness, relaxation, in us…….Pema Chodron

it is remarkably quiet within….really it is……the space where our embarrassing brokenness and neuroses and irritibilities can all just be, not swept away, not denied, not shamed into depression……may we know that beauty is shameless, generous, illuminating and forgiving….

It is often commented that the accumulation of information should not be confused with wisdom. But we can take this even further: perhaps wisdom is the very opposite of information accumulating. Who is wise? The Mishnah (the oral Torah) answers, ‘The one who learns from each person.’ This response is remarkable on a number of levels. First, the wise one is not someone who has mastered a particular body of knowledge, or achieved a certain rank and status. In fact, the Mishnah doesn’t speak at all in the language of acquisition or accumulation. Instead it describes wisdom in terms of relationship. It describes wisdom as a stance we take in the world, toward whomever we encounter. In this teaching, wisdom describes a quality of presence. This feels disarming: it drops us immediately from the realm of the mind, where we often begin when we do this kind of inquiry, down into the realm of the heart. We are to approach each person with open hands…..Joshua Boettiger

there is nothing to do but this, right now…..

What is behind you?

Desire, the salt of want,

the emptiness of glass.

Above you? Trusting

of the thousand colors of light,

and birdwings of vapor.

How can below you

be so full of idols, of selves

reflected over again and again

in the watery air of movement?

I thought I glimpsed you

before me, a moment when

a mountain, dark shadow of sky,

became a meadow, and I stepped

into its quaking grass. As if

your silence whispered

into my right ear; telling me

I too might dissolve into

the blue above all this.

…..Ellen Jane Powers