It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God’s presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes”!
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Schlagwort-Archive: joy
Call me by my true names
Do not say that I depart tomorrow
Because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply I arrive in every second, to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile learning to sing in my new nest.
To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, To be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that’s alive.
I’m the mayfly metamorphosis on the surface of the river.
And I’m the bird, that when spring comes Arrives in time to eat the mayfly.
I’m a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond.
And I’m the grass snake who approaching in silence feeds himself on the frog.
I’m the child in Uganda all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I’m the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I’m a twelve year old refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I’m the pirate – my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I’m a member of the politburo with plenty of power in my hands.
And I’m the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people dying slowly in a forced labour camp.
My joy is like a Spring so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain is like rivers of tears – so full it fills all four oceans.
Please call me by my true names
So I can hear all my cries and laughs at once
So I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names
So I can wake up
And so the door of my heart can be left open
The door of Compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh
The 14th Dalai Lama on inner peace and joy
…inner peace and joy not only benefits the individual who develops it; it also benefits the entire human community,…
In this sense, the inner state of the mind is much more important than external conditions.
Therefore it is essential that we ourselves know the means by which a state of inner peace is created and cultivated. Not only would this benefit us individually in a very immediate, practical and down-to-earth sense; but also in this era when there is so much social tension on the earth, when the nations of the world are themselves so intensely concerned with competition and with efforts to overpower one another-even at the threat of nuclear devastation – it is most urgent for us to try to develop spiritual wisdom. At present the world is not lacking in technological or industrial development.
What are we lacking ?
A basis for inner harmony and joy.
Were we to cultivate the gentle pleasures of a loving and compassionate mind inspired by wisdom, the result would be that we would continually experience peace and happiness, even when confronted by external hardships, and we would have a pacifying effect on our chaotic environment rather than merely being caught up in and perpetrating it.
On the other hand, when our mind is bereft of spiritual qualities and instead we are controlled by inner forces such as greed, jealousy, aggression, pride and so forth, then even the most positive external conditions will fail to bring any significant comfort to the mind.
Hence this inner peace and joy not only benefits the individual who develops it; it also benefits the entire human community, and by extension this entire world in which we live.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama