“Our hearts can grow strong at the broken places.”~ Jack Kornfield
a muscle in our chest the size of our fist, is more resilient and capable than we realize. it is a special grace in this life – that which breaks can heal and become stronger. love is the source and the way.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
*if you like this photography, 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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
there is a balance in nature, in life, that occurs. an ebb and flow, where even the darkest and longest of nights, holds within it the promise of ever-growing light in the days ahead.
happy Winter Solstice friends!
~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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
“Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud…” this is one of the ways our life is described in the Diamond Sutra. bright, electrified with power, stunning even…but brief. i reflected on this thought a couple of days ago on my 47th birthday. as i enter my 48th year on this spinning life-giving and accommodating rock, our home, the previous 47 years seem like a dream.
we put off so much, thinking we have so much time.
in my heart i feel this urgent need to love more fully, more openly, more skillfully. there is so much need in this world. need for healing, need for empathy, need for compassion, kindness, community. we are called to ensure full equality, social justice, and peace. our planet, our home, is crying out for healing action.
what a sacred gift this life is! to be cherished and enjoyed for sure, but also to give, serve, and heal. we have an opportunity to be aware, to practice an open heart, to embody love and harmony. my birthday wish is that we each find a practice that supports our growth in this way, that supports our embodying of love and healing, that supports us being of benefit to a world in need.
if not now, when?
~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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
thank you friends for all the birthday love! 🤗 i had a beautiful day with my family, away from social media and my phone. looking forward to reading through all of the messages. much love to you ❤️🙏🏻
There is no language of the holy. The sacred lies in the ordinary.~ Deng Ming-Dao
when we perceive our world with a beginner’s mind, with eyes of curiosity and wonder, there is nothing that is ordinary, each breath is a miracle, each moment has a newness and freshness to it, an opportunity to greet this world with open hearts, with interest and love. we begin to realize we already dwell in the sacred. the Absolute is here and present within the Relative. these aren’t just places or states of mind and heart reserved for another time, a later date. these are available here and now. ~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
*if you like this photograph, 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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
it’s this moment. it’s this time. it’s this place where the magic happens. what magic? the opportunity to love, to respond to and relate to a suffering world with an open heart and steady mind. if not now, when?and when we feel we fall short of this, with gentleness we begin anew. if not now, when? ~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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
What good is it to live with nothing left to give, forget but not forgive, not loving all you see?~ Coldplay
loving all we see…
loving all we see is not an approval of what is harmful, what is cruel, what is injustice or inequality, or what is violent and destructive. loving all we see is our response to a world with injustice and inequality, with violence and destruction, with harm and cruelty.
loving all we see is loving justice, loving equality, and working toward these things, bringing what is healing to the world. our love is an offering of heart, of hope, of peace.
our life is an offering, loving this world into healing, into equality and justice, into peace.
all of this world needs our love, so we love it all. ~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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
today is Bodhi Day, for Mahayana Buddhists. a commemoration of the day Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) sat under the bodhi tree and night sky, and in the early morning hour, awakened.
may we all find our stillness, our connection to all life, and may we wake up in heart and in mind, so we may be of benefit to a world in need. ~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) 👍🏻🙏🏻
there is an emphasis on breath in Buddhist meditation, Taoist meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga, & other spiritual traditions. breathing happens naturally & involuntarily, so we seldom even think about it until it is inhibited perhaps through illness or environment circumstances.
although breathing happens involuntarily, most of us do not breathe in a beneficial way. we breathe in short bursts, usually because we are hurried & stressed, w/ busy bodies & busy minds. this becomes habitual & patterned. this short breathing is mostly in our chest/shoulders going up & down & doesn’t use our full lung capacity.
watch a baby breathing & we see something different. we see the belly rising & falling. a relaxed diaphragm allows the lower lungs to fill up w/ air as well. w/ intention we can relearn to breathe this way, which benefits the health of our bodies & minds.
by placing our attention on our breathing, we can bring both body & mind back together. we can even enjoy our breathing. as we relax into our breath, our bodies relax as well. if the feeling of this is too strong at first, we can just lightly touch the feeling of our breathing w/ our attention without too much emphasis.
there’s a Taoist practitioner/teacher (George Thompson) that i follow & really enjoy who spoke about proper breathing recently & gave 3 suggestions/practices for proper, beneficial breathing: +Breath Slow Default: 5 seconds in / 5 seconds outDestress: 4 seconds in / 7 seconds hold / 8 seconds out +Breathe Deep Use your intentionRelease stomach tension +Breath Through Your Nose When? All day, every dayHow? Use intention to habituate
~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.) 👍🏻🙏🏻
we may come to meditation practice with thoughts of attaining enlightenment, or adding some sort of special abilities. however, the practice isn’t a practice of attainment or addition. rather, the practice is a path of coming home to ourselves, of coming to know who we really are. it is an unravelling of habits and patterns, it is a practice of inviting what has been running wild, to now settle and relax, of allowing what has been closed to now open. and when we do settle and we do open, when we allow all else to drop away, what we find is that we are quite tender and kind, that at our core there is a natural connectedness and movement, a flowing of love and compassion.
The Metta Garden 