love this quote. pulled it from a wonderful New Year’s post by Jaimal Yogis . there’s a lot in life that needs our attention and it can be overwhelming. we can feel helpless and powerless, but we do have power and we can help. Jaimal’s wise words really center in on those two truths, that we have power (our love) and we can do something (our love embodied in action). but it also offers a third truth that reflects our interdependence, and that is that we are in this together (community / Sangha) and together, we can bring much benefit. i think this is why i still have hope despite what we are facing. i have hope, because i know so many who are willing to connect with and then offer their love to the world. what is the saying? “a drop of water fills the ocean”? yes.

i’m really grateful i stumbled upon Jaimal’s work years ago and connected with him. we’ve yet to meet in person (distance, pandemic, etc.) but he’s an incredibly grounded, authentic, warm-hearted practitioner – author – teacher – producer. check out his documentary Saltwater Buddha and his book by the same name along with his other books: The Fear Project, All Our Waves Are Water, his children’s book series Mop Rides the Waves of Life and Mop Rides the Waves of Change 🌊. AND brand new, his incredible and beautiful (art by Vivian Truong) recently released graphic novel – City Of Dragons: The Awakening Storm 🐉 (second pic).

~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻

#presence #love #power #RightAction #sangha #community #interdependence #compassion #OpenHeart #mindfulness #meditation #path #practice #JaimalYogis

many of us will begin our yearly tradition of a New Year’s Resolution. perhaps we began yesterday, or will begin today, or tomorrow after the weekend.

whatever the habit-breaking, habit-forming, or self-improvement goal may be, let’s engage it with love. love for ourselves, love for our mental health, love for our physical health, love for others and for our world. let’s not engage it in competition with others, false ideals, or to impress others.

so many of these body centric resolutions seem born out of dissatisfaction with our bodies, even disgust, but it doesn’t have to be this way. we don’t have to be motivated by aggression. instead, we can be motivated out of love for our bodies, cherishing the miracle that they are and wanting to support their health the best way we can. the human body is formed by trillions of cells, roughly 30 trillion human cells and roughly 38 trillion nonhuman bacteria cells. we are the caretaker of this community of cells which allow us to have life. we can be motivated out of love for them, which is also loving ourselves.

when it comes to mental health, we often approach resolving to end our harmful habits or add beneficial habits with similar aggressive energy, trying to be someone else or be like someone else, and beating ourselves up when we fall short. i’d wager this rarely or never works in the long run. a quote by the beloved Persian poet and Sufi mystic, Rumi, comes to mind – “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” in meditation practice this is our approach as well. we approach with gentleness. this approach cultivates spaciousness and spaciousness, an opening of heart and steadying of mind, waters the beneficial habits.

we can love ourselves, think we’re pretty amazing, and still take actions that benefit ourselves, our health, others, and our world. as the Japanese Zen Master, Shunryo Suzuki Roshi, famously said to his students, “Each of you is perfect the way you are and you can use a little improvement.”

~j

⭕️❤️🙏🏻

#NewYear #NewYearsResolution #habits #SelfImprovement #goals #perspective #life #love #nonaggression #OpenHeart #path #practice #JinpaLhaga

one year ends & another begins. life is a series of endings & beginnings. may our compassion accompany all.

Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion in Buddhism. featured here w/ multiple arms, often depicted w/ 1000 arms, each there to reach out into the world, to relieve suffering. in China they are depicted as Guanyin, she who hears the cries of the world, vowing to not rest until suffering is relieved.

these figures & stories can be seen as representations of what already resides in us, in our hearts. we can be the embodied compassion of Avalokiteshvara. we too can reach our arms out into the world, hear the cries of the world & answer the call, going where needed, relieving suffering. sometimes that place is our own hearts. we bring compassion to ourselves as well as to others.

we are living in a time of much loss, personal & collective. we are living in a time of heightened fear & existential crisis. this leads to increased stress & many respond to this w/ aggression, but compassion is what is needed for ourselves & others (sometimes fierce compassion re: need for social justice, preventing authoritarianism, attending to the climate crisis). compassion must be our fuel for the work that is calling us or we will burn out, when our light is most needed.

may we hold all that has passed & all that is to be w/ such compassion. we can do so w/ practice, w/ settled minds & open hearts. we are made of love & when we settle, when we allow ourselves to be w/ vulnerability, tenderness, spaciousness & open hearts, our compassion naturally arises to answer the call.

May our hearts remain open
May our minds be balanced & at ease
May we rest in Love & be fueled by compassion
May our luminosity shine brightest in the darkest night.

Happy New Year, dear friends!

~j

⭕️❤️🙏🏻

*you can have this photography as a print or on various products found at JMWart, my online Redbubble store. you can visit directly at JMWart.redbubble.com or via my website (www.jaysenwaller.com) 👍🏻🙏🏻

#Avalokiteshvara #Guanyin #bodhisattva #compassion #love #OpenHeart #luminous #light #shine #metta #lovingkindness #path #practice #NewYear #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #photography #bwphotography

the beloved Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke died this day in 1926. if you have never read his poetry, please do. if you have never read the book Letters To A Young Poet, please please do. he speaks to the heart with such beauty and authenticity.

the quote here is one of my favorites from “Letters…” and i couldn’t agree more.

~j

#RainerMariaRilke #Rilke

outside circumstances will always change, because they are made of various conditions that are of the nature to change. we can receive pleasure from these, but they are temporary and will be lost to us eventually and we may suffer, because of this loss. 

joy, however, can be an underlying constant in our lives as we open our hearts, settle our minds and allow awareness of our interconnection with all life to arise from within. we are carried in the union and flow of something vast and beautiful.

~j

⭕️❤️🙏🏻

#pleasure #joy #life #interconnection #interbeing #vast #beautiful #OpenHeart #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #EckhartTolleQuote

i recently completed a couple of commissioned art pieces. one was a calligraphy and enso, which i cannot show, because it is a gift for someone. the other was a commissioned recreation of an Inktober piece i did back in 2018. that year, i did an illustration series that featured a young novice monk, a Zen master cat, and a tag along rat friend. one of the illustrations was the three of them sitting with the night sky filled with stars, with their backs to us. i called it “Sitting With Stars.”

pictured here is the commissioned recreation. i made some changes, placing the young novice monk in the center and having the sky encased/outlined by an enso. i also included the character for “thousand” or “numerous” as a reflection of the vastness of the starry night. 

there’s something stabilizing for me, sitting beneath stars. i feel in awe and incredibly small in this vast universe, yet filled with wonder and gratitude for getting to be part of it, an expression of it, this mystery, Life.
may you find, on your journey, that you too are an expression of Life, a beautiful particular expression indelibly part of something vast and luminous as the stars in the night sky 💫✨

~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻

*if interested in commissioned art pieces like this one, reach out, via my website (www.jaysenwaller.com) or DM.

#stars #night #light #luminous #universe #life #interdependence #contemplation #meditation #Zen #Buddhism #illustration #art #enso #calligraphy #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside.
In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window
and draw the curtains apart.
~
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

when we open the window, when we open our heart, we have the opportunity to no longer be burdened, to breathe free, to be free.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻

#forgiveness #OpenHeart #freedom #unburdened #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #photography

truth speaker.embodiment of light, laughter, and love.

Nobel Peace Prize winning anti-Apartheid and human rights activist and good friend to the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

a voice born into a time that needed his voice. a seeker of justice and reconciliation, he was a true healer and bodhisattva.

we still need his voice, maybe even more. may his voice, his understanding of truth, his light shine brightly in all who hear the same call, and may we be those who hear.

~j

⭕️❤️🙏🏻

#ArchibishopDesmondTutu #DesmondTutu #justic #peace #antiapartheid #humanrights #love #OpenHeart #light #bodhisattva

may it not be lost on us, that this great messenger and bodhisattva of Love came to us as a poor, refugee, child.

the message i receive from Christmas is that hope comes from unexpected places and that Love calls our hearts to reach out beyond our comfort zones and privilege to HAVE room at the inn to receive those in need.

may we embody the message of love that is found in Jesus and the Christmas story, for a world still needing to hear it.

Merry Christmas to you and yours! May it be filled with love, light, and joy!
~j

⭕️❤️🙏🏻

#Christmas #ChristmasStory #Jesus #child #poor #refugee #bodhisattva

There is only one question:
how to love this world.
~
Mary Oliver

embodied.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻

*if you like this art, you can have it as a print or on various products found at JMWart, my online Redbubble store. you can visit directly at JMWart.redbubble.com or via my website (www.jaysenwaller.com) 👍🏻🙏🏻

#love #embodied #OpenHeart #life #path #practice #metta #maitri #lovingkindness #art #JinpaLhaga #JMWart