Every spring my 80+ year old neighbor puts this chair in the middle of her "forget me not " meadow. The lawn is not mowed until the flowers have faded. I am so happy she does this.
“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs
and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the
edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds
on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her
as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to
which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful
little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of
grass. She looks up, and she looks down, she looks at the mouse. Then
she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it
thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament
that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is
just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be
the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or
we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every
single moment of our life.”
― Pema Chödrön
― Pema Chödrön
9 comments:
Any post that is stated with a smile has got to be a good one... and this, indeed it's so...
I liked the reminder we each have a choice to make. How very true!
It is however the paragraph about the eighty year old, the Forget Me Not and the chair which I felt drawn to the most. Will you tell us the real story behind that if you know it?
Enjoying your posts and discovering a little of your corner of the world!
I love both stories!
So does she go out there alot and sit and enjoy it?
We have a small meadow of forget-me-nots on our front lawn and my husband always mows around them until they are done. Now I have an urge to go place a lawn chair right in the middle of them... sigh.. some people are so very smart.
Your tiger post is perfect, by the way. Perfect for how I'm thinking these days. Perfect for thinking about while sitting in an old-fashioned lawn chair in a field of forget-me-nots.
We have a small meadow of forget-me-nots on our front lawn and my husband always mows around them until they are done. Now I have an urge to go place a lawn chair right in the middle of them... sigh.. some people are so very smart.
Your tiger post is perfect, by the way. Perfect for how I'm thinking these days. Perfect for thinking about while sitting in an old-fashioned lawn chair in a field of forget-me-nots.
Shelagh, I want to steal your Pema quote for my blog... I hope you don't mind! It's so lovely.
Hello! I love the story of a woman and tigers. Though I don't know much about the western culture, but this story has something common with our Asian world. Thanks for sharing this.
I hope you don't mind but I had to share the quote on FB...I linked it back to your blog. It was just exactly the quote I needed to hear (read) today.
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