When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise,
just an ordinary fellow
who has completed his work.
~P’ang Yun
English Version by Stephen Mitchell
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This is wonderful. Great picture beside it, too! Thank you!
this is a beautiful quote and a lovely image added with it… so often i think we have these expectations of some grand experience waiting for us somewhere, when really the realization that we are simple travelers on a path, the joy is sincerely to be found in the ordinary…
peace*
Thanks! I love the invitation of this passage. Reading it really helps me relax. The picture is one I took this afternoon on a walk in the woods- another activity I must do to keep myself grounded, happy, in the ordinary… in grace…. yet it is possible to let days and days go by- especially when I have a long list for the studio, the kids need rides… laundry’s everywhere…. As things get busy here, I am going to try to remember to make time for walks, for the garden. And I want to take frequent sacred pauses- to read something centering…or even just to consciously breathe.
I love this walk in the woods you show. I have a similiar wooded lane I walk down too.
It gives me peace to walk, and listen to the “silence” of the woods, birds singing, my feet crunching on the leaves, and the great scents on the wind. It’s a great place for my sacred pause and to bring my mind back to the things I love.