To use these quotes as lectio, read them slowly, pausing between each paragraph. After you've read all three, take a few minutes to reflect. Make a note of what few words speak to you.
Read the quotes again. Slowly. Let the words speak again. Discern what you're curious about, interested in, drawn to (or bothered by!).
Write about it for a few minutes--or 15 minutes if you have time.
Read over what you've written. Let this speak to you as well.
Then sit quietly for a few more minutes in prayer or meditation.
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Try to be
mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become
still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful,
rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the
nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and
go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha. -Ajahn Chah
When we
discover the middle path, we neither remove ourselves from the world nor get
lost in it. We can be with all our experience in its complexity, with our own
exact thoughts and feelings and drama. We learn to embrace tension, paradox,
change. Instead of seeking resolution, waiting for the chord at the end of a
song, we let ourselves open and relax in the middle. In the middle we discover
that the world is workable. -Jack Kornfield
Of course,
we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how
everyone else should behave. But it’s not our task to create an ideal. It’s our
task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening
of the heart, conditions are always good enough. -Ajahn Sumedo
