Saturday, November 17, 2018

Quality of Attention, Understanding, and Intimacy

     “Love is the quality of attention we pay to things.” J.D. McClatchy

     “In essence, mindfulness – being about attention, awareness, relationality, and caring – is a universal human capacity akin to our capacity for language acquisition. It is a way of being in wise and purposeful relationship with one’s experience, both inwardly and outwardly, with oneself and with others. Thus there is an intrinsic social dimension to its cultivation as well. It usually involves cultivating familiarity and intimacy with aspects of everyday experience that we often take for granted." Jon Kabat Zinn

     During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda

     “Mindfulness is a kind of balanced awareness — we're open to things as they are, with acceptance and nonjudgment. But when it's incomplete we can open to things as they are and not see the bigger picture of the pain in the world. When we understand and open to that pain, our own and others’, the only thing that makes sense is compassion. Compassion means we use our clear seeing in the service of the alleviation of suffering.” Michelle Becker https://www.eomega.org/article/being-kind-wont-make-you-weak

     "Mindfulness does not reject experience. It lets experience be the teacher. With mindfulness, we can enter the difficulties in our life and find healing and freedom." Jack Kornfield


     "Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." George Washington Carver

      "Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.” Claude Monet

      “One learns through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.” Mark Twain

      "You learn about a thing ... by opening yourself wholeheartedly to it. You learn about a thing by loving it." 
Barbara McClintock - Nobel prize-winning geneticist

      "The truth is, what one really needs is not Nobel prizes but love. How do you think one gets to be a Nobel laureate? Wanting love, that's how. Wanting it so bad one works all the time and ends up a Nobel laureate. It's a consolation prize. 

     What matters is love." George Wald - Nobel prize-winning biologist from Harvard

     Intimacy is what practice is all about: the realization of the essential lack of distinction between self and other that inevitably leads to wisdom and compassionate action. Intimacy with the depth of our being – authenticity – is the essential first step. Then, with the help of loving-kindness meditation, we bring intimacy into our relationships with others, starting with those dearest to us and moving on to those who don’t seem dear at all. We can grow in intimacy to include everyone around us, all of society, the whole world and all the beings it contains.

      Modified from the description of Pat Enkyo O’Hara’s book: “Most Intimate: A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges.” Shambhala, 2014.

 
awakeningartsacademy.com


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