As the Buddha described life, he spoke of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, often described as “the eight worldly winds.” It’s just how life is. There is no one who experiences only pleasure and no pain. There is no act that elicits only praise and no blame. Appreciating this fact is not a call for apathy or depression. We can recognize the truth of things, accept them as the inevitable fabric of life, and understand that the best way to work for change is not to be freaked out, or in denial, or anxious with the ups, lest they dissolve, and plummet with the downs, fearing they won’t.

Equanimity implies a posture of dignity even in a whirlwind of change. It implies being able to breathe. It implies complete presence. It implies being able to come to peace. If we take the time to reflect on the inevitable turnings of life, it will build our equanimity. If we practice fully experiencing the joy of certain moments without fearfully clinging to them, it will build equanimity. If, as Joanna Macy says, we look at the pain and keep breathing, it will build equanimity. All of it will build a quality of radiant calm that is intricate, shifting, alive.

~Sharon Salzberg

from the inside I recognize this love….

inquiry for today~ care of the soul for you…..

what I need to remember….

Make the ordinary come alive…

the extraordinary will take care of itself.

~William Martin