Whenever there is beauty, kindness, the recognition of the goodness of simple things in your life, look for the background to that experience within yourself. But don't look for it as if you were looking for something. You can not pin it down and say, "Now I have it," or grasp it mentally and define it in some way. It is like the cloudless sky. It has no form. It is space; it is stillness, the sweetness of Being and infinitely more than these words, which are only pointers. When you are able to sense it directly within yourself, it deepens. So when you appreciate something simple-a sound, a sight, a touch--when you see beauty , when you feel loving kindness toward another, sense the inner spaciousness that is the source and background to that experience.
Many poets and sages throughout the ages have observed that true happiness--I call it the joy of Being--is found in simple, seemingly unremarkable things. Most people, in their restless search for something significant to happen to them, continuously miss the insignificant, which may not be insignificant at all. The philosopher Nietzche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote, "for happiness, how little suffices for happiness!...the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance--little maketh up the best happiness. Be still." (A New Earth Pg. 235.)
For more info on our next meetup visit www.meetup.com/bellevuetollegroup or www.meetup.com/seattletollegroup
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