Crashingly Beautiful

What is important is the total, earnest intention to find out if your mind is conditioned so that you discover your conditioning, and do not just say that your mind is or is not conditioned. When you look into a mirror you see your face as it is; you may wish that some parts of it were different, but the actual fact is shown in the mirror. Now, can you look at your conditioning in a similar way? Can you be totally aware of your conditioning without the desire to alter it? You are not aware of it totally when you wish to change it, when you condemn it or compare it with something else. But when you can look at the fact of your conditioning without comparison, without judgement, then you are seeing it as a total thing, and only then is there a possibility of freeing the mind from that conditioning.

Jiddu Krishnamurti (The Collected Works vol VIII, pp 265-266) (via sharanam)

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976), Leaf Pattern, 1920s (from: theshipthatflew via: source

Why are relationships such excellent practice? Why do they help us go into what we might call the slow death of the ego? Because, aside from our formal sitting, there is no way that is superior to relationships in helping us see where we’re stuck and what we’re holding on to. As long as our buttons are pushed, we have a great chance to learn and grow. So a relationship is a great gift, not because it makes us happy–it often doesn’t–but because any intimate relationship, if we view it as practice, is the clearest mirror we can find.

Charlotte Joko Beck, from “Everyday Zen: Love & Work,” (from the extraordinary blog, On the Precipice. She also has a wonderful Tumblr at It’s All Dhamma)

Spitfire Lake Reflection
Photograph by Will Forbes
Taken on Spitfire Lake in the Adirondack Park at around 7 a.m.

from: nationalgeographicmagazine

Download Wallpaper (1600 x 1200 pixels)

You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.

John Green (from Whiskey River)