There are no fixed limits
Time does not stand still.
Nothing endures,
Nothing is final.
You cannot lay hold
Of the end or the beginning.
He who is wise sees near and far
As the same,
Does not despise the small
Or value the great:
Where all standards differ
How can you compare?
With one glance
He takes in past and present,
Without sorrow for the past
Or impatience with the present.
All is in movement.
He has experience
Of fullness and emptiness.
He does not rejoice in success
Or lament in failure
The game is never over
Birth and death are even
The terms are not final.
~ Thomas Merton
The game is never over … when we accept and surrender to it all 💛
Merton, Thomas (2010-03-30). The Way of Chuang Tzu (Second Edition) (pp. 85-86). New Directions. Kindle Edition.
❤
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Hi Val…Happy Memorial Day! Thank you for the peaceful words here…they caress my soul ♡ Hope all is wonderful with you 🙂
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Thanks so much Lorrie. Each new day brings gratitude and wonder 💕
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Yes! Both WONDERFUL feelings, Val. Peace ♡
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Words to savour, and to contemplate upon. Seriously profound – one can never quite get the inner meaning of such words, but one can stand and hear the echoes of meaning, perhaps? This is all that words can do, it seems – yet what words are these! I love that book, and have it beside my bed constantly. H ❤
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Thank you Hariod 💛
This is on my kindle along with others books that I enjoy pausing and dipping in to. There is a sense of knowing, yet a feeling of space and so much more to open up to.
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One of my favourites.
❤
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Thank you Louise!
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Very profound. Yet, for most of us, and certainly including yours truly, those wise words are beyond reach. Maybe I’m being too tough on myself? Possibly a constant reminder of these wisdoms does eventually leave a paw print.
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That’s what I am hoping for Paul. The more we tune into this way of thinking and being, the more we live it. 🐾
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Lovely, Val.
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Ah yes. Thank you Mary 💕
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This is so beautiful and so true, Val. And comforting too.
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Thank you Helen. Embracing life fully as it is without judgement is something to aspire to. I have a long way to go ❣
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❤ this, Val!
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So glad it hit the spot 💕
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Absorbing these words is the way of acceptance.
the what is, is
this too shall pass.
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This too shall pass … Yet never end.
The juxtaposition of opposingwords makes me pause too!
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Comforting words, Val.
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Thank you Carol. There is comfort in the acceptance. xo
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“All is in movement” Beautiful reminder Val 💚
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I love this part too. Thank you Karen 💛
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Merton’s words are simple on the face of it, yet fathomless in its profundity. There is no near and far, past and present, fullness and emptiness, success and failure, Nevertheless, we permit our lives to be ruthlessly bound by time, swinging pendulum-like between time past and time present, and actions scaled as deemed failures and successes. Over five millennia ago, Krishna’s advice to Arjuna was to attain ‘sthitha prajna’, loosely translated as equanimity in English. Stitha prajna is spiritual intelligence enabling attainment of a stable level of existence, unaffected by the vicissitudes of life, without allowing the mind to get lost in the labyrinth of desires. A few thousand years later, these thoughts resonated in Buddha’s emphasis on impermanence of worldly life, and attaining desirelessness. My namastes to you, Val…
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Thank you Raj from sharing the wisdom of the Gita. You put it so eloquently. My simple western introduction to this deep and expansive place is called finding our middle ground. Namaste 🙏
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Wonderful Val
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Thank you David 💛
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