Butterflies on a Sea Wind Quotes

“To do that, we first learn to pay attention, to be fully present in each moment and aware of the nuances of life. It takes a while, but every bit of improvement in this skill is a wonderful gift we give ourselves each day. And it’s done by relaxing, not by forcing.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“The more you talk about It and the more you think about It, the further from It you go; stop talking, stop thinking and there is nothing you will not understand.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“A journey through all the nooks and crannies of the human experience, spiritual inquiry is the effort to connect with a larger reality, to master the self and its endless puzzles and boundaries. It’s the never-ending asking, What is this? What’s the point?”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“Trust will be sustained by the direct experience of what begins to happen—food is delicious, colors bright, the world vast and beautiful—then the effort is clearly worth the initial struggle.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“it is training to develop the courage, patience, and willpower necessary to do what is required in any situation regardless of whether it is difficult or easy, or what personal likes or dislikes arise in dealing with it. This training teaches us how to cope with major life crises—cancer, death of a loved one—the unpleasant things that are absolutely unavoidable.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“Normally we try to avoid what we don’t like. However, in a retreat, if we stay, we begin to see how our mental reactions actually make things harder or easier. The process highlights how opinionated and self-centered we are in familiar activities and how much we like to stay in comfortable routines. We resent being corrected as we make mistakes in learning the apparently arbitrary rules, and then we see how easily our egos are affronted.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“This second weekend retreat wasn’t at a lovely mountain meditation center. It was in a day-care center where we hung sheets over the walls in a vain attempt to cover up the ABCs and Mickey Mouse figures. The air was stuffy in spite of the roaring, rattling air conditioners. The rug under our sitting mats was hopelessly stained and faded from years of small children and their accidents. Trucks roared up and down the busy highway outside the building every few minutes. I cringed at the prospect of two days shut up in this place.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“Watching the tiny shrimp and snails on the sea whips, I realized that those moments between birth and death are exactly what we have in life. If we just pay full attention to each of them as we live it, the universe will tell us what it’s about. And I strongly suspected that it was as much about sea whips and snails as it was about humans.”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen

“Many of us today are overstretched, trying to balance too many things. We all want to be happy, but too often happiness is out there, somewhere over the horizon, something we’ll get to in the future. When things don’t work out in accordance with our desires, we move on, change partners, change jobs, or trade in whatever isn’t right for a better model. It’s always easier to keep moving than to stop and face the fundamental questions: Who am I? What is really happening here?”
― Anne Rudloe, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen