Theologian Howard Thurman recommended that we “look at the world with quiet eyes.” It is an intriguing phrase.

All too often we seek happiness in the wrong places and in the wrong ways. We cling to people and experiences and objects as though we could glue them in place, while ignoring the precipice of change upon which we are standing.

When we practice looking at the world with quiet eyes, we develop a degree of calm and tranquility. The surprising discovery is that this quietness isn’t passivity or sluggishness; in fact, we can be fully connected to what is happening, and have a bright and clear awareness.

This quality of calm isn’t deadened or coldly distant from our experience—it is vital and alive. We find that the world will come to fill us without our straining for it.

As we release that momentum toward clinging—no longer falling into the future, ignoring what is here as we obsess about what we don’t yet have, fixating on defeating change and insecurity—we calm our minds. Such calm is its own special type of happiness, one of composure and strength. In that alert yet relaxed state we find peace.

~Sharon Salzberg

when I love what I love, I am real…

inquiry for today~ find home again and again…

strolling home

Day’s pain, muffled by its own glare

burns among stars in the night.

~Rabindranath Tagore