The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives. Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it. In the complexities of our minds and lives we easily forget the power of attention, yet without attention we live only on the surface of existence. It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.
- Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart from Everyday Mind
3 comments:
Careful. You're starting to sound like Baba Ram Das and I forgot to tak my LSD...
Though it's funny you mention that; I'm reading Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and I was struck by that idea there, too.
Good times.
ya, no worries about experimenting with drugs, but your comment made me realize that I forgot the credit for the passage/quote.
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