The gift of mindfulness is that by accepting the present moment you are better able to shape your future moments with wisdom and clarity. Not only do you reduce your own suffering, you are also able to make good choices about how to act next. In the West we are raised to be knowledgeable, to work hard, and to be productive members of society, but no one teaches us how to deal productively with our own emotions, especially the difficult ones.

~Kristen Neff

I can’t seem to wrap my head around the deep cliff, the fissures, the messed up journeys….this is where I soften…

inquiry for today~ what is calling you to soften around today?

unfiltered

It takes a lot of faith to sit down right in the middle of your existence. This not the same as the faith that a doctrine or teaching or teacher is the truth. That is actually a belief, which tells us how to interpret life and find comfort and safety within it; a belief provides a way of insulating ourselves from real faith- from real trust. Faith in its truest sense is something different. Faith allows us to let go of belief, of how we habitually translate each moment of our experience int a conceptual model that seems to make it easier to understand, seems to give us some control, and eases the feeling of insecurity we have whenever we find ourselves on some edge. Your edge could be challenges in your work or relationship; it could be illness or a loved one’s death or even your own impending death; it could be your feeling very challenged by the great sorrow of the world. A lot of things can make you feel like you are on an edge and you do not know what to do with it.

If we can discover a radical faith (and sometimes the deepest faith comes out of the deepest despondency or mistrust), if we can meet challenges head on- not try to escape, not play victim, not try to explain things away with complicated theologies or psychologies, but open to that part of life that is unavoidable- then we will be open to grace. If life teaches us anything, it is that w are not in control. The things we are trying to avoid are what lead to awakening and to new and broader ways of seeing and experiencing life- of experiencing ourselves.

~Adyashanti