4:36 am. And, Inspired…

Posted on by Live & Learn

Good Wednesday morning.  Here’s kicking off hump day with inspiring posts of the week from my favorite bloggers (including a “professional blogger’s” post this week).

Ioanna @ life portOfolio with her post Hate Words.  “Take a moment and think. Your phone rings, at the end of the line is a loved one…“Hey sweetie, my test results are out…”  The rest of the phone call can be guessed…Yes, you lose ground under your feet…”

Seth Segall @ The Existential Buddhist with his post: Does All This Sitting Get Us Somewhere?  “Novice meditators often ask “will all this sitting get me somewhere?” By “somewhere” they mean somewhere else than where their sitting currently gets them — countless cushion-hours accompanied by states of desire, aversion, judgment, pain, boredom, torpor, fantasy, reminiscence, doubt, planning, philosophizing — and, yes — moments of presence and clarity…We marinate in life and are cooked by it. It’s a process that happens, not something we accomplish. We didn’t build that. Things shift. We tire of hanging onto things. We cease repeating old mistakes. We laugh at ourselves. We open and soften. We come alive…

By “somewhere else” they mean their fantasy of whatever-it-was the Buddha experienced at the moment of his Enlightenment. They wonder whether they will ever have an experience like the Buddha’s…The answer is “no.” The Buddha’s experience was his own. Ours is ours. But sitting isn’t about having a spiritual experience. It’s about living a spiritual life. Sitting isn’t where the miracle occurs. Our life is the miracle. Sitting is the mirror. It’s the pot we’re cooked in.”

Gretchen Rubin @ The Happiness Project interviewing author Heather King in a post titled: “Instead of Feeling that Nothing Is Ever Enough, You’re Grateful for the Tiniest Thing.” “…Actually, I’m not sure happiness is what I’m really after. Happiness to me is a mood, and a mood that is largely dependent on outside circumstances: whether I have money in the bank, whether the sun is shining, whether I’m healthy. Any way of life where I’m dependent on what happens outside of me, I’m sunk.  What I’m after is joy, and joy has pain—our pain and the sorrow of the whole world—in the middle of it. Joy, unlike happiness, becomes a state that you may experience only in fleeting stabs, but nonetheless abides. Mother Teresa experienced a fifty-year dark night of the soul, and yet all who met her were struck by her quiet, light-filled joy. So you can be in complete spiritual aridity and darkness, yet still have joy. You can “feel” no happiness at all, but you can still abide in joy.”

“…Joy comes as a stab; an unexpected moment of connection; a nanosecond when we would lay down our lives just because the other person exists. This is the highest level of being human and we’ve all felt it: about our parent, the man or woman we love, our kid. Happiness—as a state of being, a stance toward life—is connection. It’s the embrace of mystery…People are the problem and people are the solution. I can get very attached to my “introspective way,” but in the end, you have to get out and mingle.

A quote from William Blake says it all: “We can’t bind ourselves to joy—we have to kiss it as it flies.”

Have a great Hump Day…

Image Credit: Thank you creatingaquietmind via beantz.

25 thoughts on “4:36 am. And, Inspired…”

  1. I am so not thanking you for the pin back! 😛 I would have much preferred not having to write that post, yet, i have to say, a slap on the face sometimes is helpful in order to appreciate the little things and find happiness a bit more easily. Love the quote “We can’t bind ourselves to joy—we have to kiss it as it flies.” So true….

  3. Another “rock me back on my heels,” make me look at things from a different angle collection of posts, David–thank you! I’ve come to think of these Wednesday morning missives as Kanigan’s PSAs. :-). You’re a treasure…

  4. What Lori said – I look forward to your Wednesday inspirations with wonder and piqued anticipation. “What’s he going to mention this week that I will have to check out?” “Where does the find all these phenomenal posts written by people who all seem to be part of his inner circle?” “Man, how big IS his inner circle?” I will read them all – because it will bring me joy – not in a passing kiss, but perhaps a longer, albeit still transitory, hug.

    1. You flatter me pal on my “inner circle.” It ain’t that large and thank goodness for you and our collective friends on this blog. My selections have little to do with my knowing them – I do find many posts, including all of yours, to be inspirational. 🙂 That being said, thank you for sharing your kind thoughts.

      1. Well heck, I flatter you a lot – because it makes you a little uncomfortable and because you deserve it.

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