a day in the (silent) life...

"Meditation is a discipline of simplicity. Our world needs to learn it urgently. It is a discipline whereby you direct all your powers of consciousness to God. Instead of being at the mercy of your mind with its myriad thoughts and imaginations, you bring our mind, your consciousness, to silence. In that silence you quite naturally become open to God and God's power. It is an utterly benevolent power which we can only describe with the word 'love'."
- Dom John Main, OSB


Once again, I have given myself the gift of a 5-day silent retreat. I leave after work on Thursday. Here's what a typical day on a non-directed, silent retreat looks like (with possible minor variations):

• sleep
• meditate
• eat
• walk
• read/write
• eat
• nap
• walk
• meditate
• eat
• read/write
• meditate
• read/write
• sleep

Well, SOMEbody has to do it! :-) See you on the flip side of Silence...
simply jag xox

a simple teaching...

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

- Rumi

I heard the most beautiful - and simple - story ever yesterday.

I was listening to an old Tapestry interview featuring Coleman Barks, a world-reknowned interpreter of the poetry of Rumi. When speaking of his Teacher (whose name escapes me!), Mary Hynes (the host) asked him, "What did he teach you?" His answer imprinted on my heart:

"When I met him, he told me he loved me. And I told him I loved him... and we spent the next nine years unwrapping that gift."

How simple is that?! When we love, and know ourselves to be loved, everything flows from there. When we are rooted in love, we are all students... and we are all teachers.

simply jag
xox