‘What is beginner’s mind? It is dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about something, and seeing things with an open mind, fresh eyes, just like a beginner.’ Leo Babuta
Category: Thought for the month
Thought for August
‘……peace lies not in the avoidance of conflict but in avoiding internalising and acting out conflict, or colluding with the powers and dynamics of conflict within the systems by which we order our societies. It begins with our small, insignificant selves saying no to every thought, word and attitude that is an aggressive approach to the other and living a daily yes to all that lives…..’ Gemma Simmonds
Thought for July
‘People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognise: a blue sky, white clouds, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle. Thich Nhat Hanh
Thought for June
‘Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’ Howard Thurman
Thought for May
‘Instead of allowing ourselves to be led and trapped by out feelings, we should let them disappear as soon as they form, like letters drawn on water with a finger.’ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Thought for March
‘Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all……as long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude – it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.’ G K Chesterton
Thought for December
‘Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.’ Brené Brown, from ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’
Thought for November
‘Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.’ Eckhart Tolle
Thought for October
‘We see that life, composed of this mind and body, is in a state of continual, constant transformation and flux. There is always the possibility of radical change. Every moment – not just poetically and figuratively, but literally – every moment we are dying and being reborn, we and all of life.’ Sharon Salzberg
Thought for September
‘To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility.’ Bell Hooks
Susannah Izzard Yoga 