machistado:

I don’t understand those who choose not to forgive. It’s weak and self-destructive to live with so much anger and hatred in your heart rather than moving on so you can be at peace with your circumstances and more importantly, yourself. Such negativity eats away at you, it rots your soul. It’s impossible to live like that. 

It’s difficult to move forward in life while you’re still hanging on to the negativity in your past. Life is too short to carry cruel and negative people with you. It’s important to reach contentment and only carry those who bring joy to you through kindness and love. 

When I was young, my dad used to tell me a famous Buddhist story that’s always relevant and may be broadly applied:

Two monks were making a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of a great Saint. During the course of their journey, they came to a river where they met a beautiful young woman — an apparently worldly creature, dressed in expensive finery and with her hair done up in the latest fashion. She was afraid of the current and afraid of ruining her lovely clothing, so asked the brothers if they might carry her across the river.

The younger and more exacting of the brothers was offended at the very idea and turned away with an attitude of disgust. The older brother didn’t hesitate, and quickly picked the woman up on his shoulders, carried her across the river, and set her down on the other side. She thanked him and went on her way, and the brother waded back through the waters.

The monks resumed their walk, the older one in perfect equanimity and enjoying the beautiful countryside, while the younger one grew more and more brooding and distracted, so much so that he could keep his silence no longer and suddenly burst out, “Brother, we are taught to avoid contact with women, and there you were, not just touching a woman, but carrying her on your shoulders!”

The older monk looked at the younger with a loving, pitiful smile and said, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river; you are still carrying her.”

“You are still carrying her.”

This is one of the truest Zen stories. Everyone can understand this. It has even it made into a kid’s book.

"Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth."

The Dhammapada

(Source: findandtrust)

ingoodtaste:

Woodstock.

The Esopus River Valley is brilliant and confused with itself.

Tibetan and Zen monasteries built on former Church grounds. Old blooded, long-settled folks of the Catskills on one end of the highway; Neo- and re-settled hippies on the other. Reiki and astrology readers down the way from a guy who will rent you a canoe off the back of his truck for the afternoon (cash only).

Last Memorial Day, I read the storefronts (yoga, tie-dye t-shirt shop, yoga, glass art, painted art, yoga) from the covered deck of a restaurant sitting next to a biker gang. I knew they were a biker gang because they were talking about how they were in a biker gang together. Audra & I were talking about our sandwiches and how we should contact that Zen monastery we passed all those times (because I got lost).

There is Woodstock, NY and there is the site of the Woodstock festival. Woodstock, NY is off the NY State Throughway, past the Kingston exit. The site of the concert is in Bethel, NY, on the Delaware River. They are not near each other at all and bear  no resemblance to one another, save the name.

readytobesuperfit:

Amazing.

rippedandfit:

Can’t doesn’t apply to you.

As always, the answer to doubt is to let go and just do it.

Very rarely are there good reasons not follow that inner voice, which can be called ‘your heart’, ‘your passion’, ‘soul, or any other thing in which your actions become so very natural, without any interrupting thought.

There are, however, a myriad and inexhaustible number of excuses not to, and yet they all sound the same.

(via gettingripped2013)

Life as movement

• Most promising job applications: As a substitute para in the school district; At the children’s museum. Both feel awesome as possibilities.
• Writing everyday, all very short stuff, some not that short; size doesn’t matter (cue Michael Scott)
• Practicing everyday, yoga or Zen
• Ignoring a friend whose life imploded take it out on me, because I have no desire to handle that crap right now
• Going to sleep in a bed in which is entirely claimed by a small orange cat who is sleeping in the exact center of.
• Learning, or trying to learn, that the concept of ‘flowing with grace’ means exactly surrendering, but in a good way

via poorartists

Paige Bradley

From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: A social security number, a gender, a race, a profession or an I.Q. I ponder if we are more defined by the container we are in, rather than what we are inside. Would we recognize ourselves if we could expand beyond our bodies? Would we still be able to exist if we were authentically ‘un-contained’?

[monkeydrinkstea]

Manhattan in the background? Shot from the Brooklyn-side of the river?

Also, just wonder, could we and would we?