Meditation helps me feel the shape, the texture of my inner life. Here, in the quiet, I can begin to taste what Buddhists would call my true nature, what Jews call the still, small voice, what Christians call the holy spirit.
Interpretation
Meditation allows for introspective exploration of one's inner self and spiritual essence.
In this quote, Wayne Muller emphasizes the transformative power of meditation in unveiling the deeper layers of our inner life. He suggests that through stillness and quiet, one can discover a profound sense of self that transcends labels and is recognized in various spiritual traditions, highlighting the universal nature of this experience.
In practice
During a mindfulness workshop, I shared this quote to encourage participants to embrace their inner journey.
The greatest barrier to own own healing is not the pain, sorrow or violence inflicted upon us as children. Our greatest hindrance is our ongoing capacity to judge, to criticize, and to bring tremendous harm to ourselves. If we can harden our heart against ourselves and meet our most tender feelings with anger and condemnation, we simultaneously armor our heart against the possibility of gentleness, love and healing.
Some of us have a hard time believing that we are actually able to face our own pain. We have convinced ourselves that our pain is too deep, too frightening, something to avoid at all costs. Yet if we finally allow ourselves to feel the depth of that sadness and gently let it break our hearts, we may come to feel a great freedom, a genuine sense of release and peace, because we have finally stopped running away from ourselves and from the pain that lives within us.
Effortlessness is the ability to slow down and listen for the spaces between the joints... Deep within all things there is a natural rhythm, a music of opening and closing, expansion and contraction.
The heart of most spiritual practices is simply this: Remember who you are. Remember what you love. Remember what is sacred. Remember what is true. Remember that you will die and that this day is a gift. Remember how you wish to live.
If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath— our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us.
Every single choice we make, no matter how small, is the ground where who we are meets what is in the world. And the fruits of that essential relationship- the intimate, fertile conversation between our own heart's wisdom and the way the world has emerged before us- becomes a lifelong practice of deep and sacred listening for the next right thing we are required to do. We make the only choice that feels authentic and honest, necessary and true in that moment.
Everyone knows that when you look at a television ad, you do not expect to get information. You expect to see delusion and imagery.
Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.
Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.
Society's mores have changed, and what used to be thought not to be cruel and unusual now is thought to be cruel and unusual.
In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.
To our critical eyes, the threads of which the past is woven are, by nature, endless and indivisible. Scientifically speaking, we cannot grasp the absolute beginning of anything: everything extends backwards to be prolonged by something else.
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