Thursday, November 20, 2008

The way we see things

Now here's a really good reason for being diligent in doing inner work:

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

-- Anaïs Nin

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4 comments:

  1. Unknown7:08 PM

    Ellie, forgive me if this isn't the appropriate forum. I am genuinely curious about your post of last week promising to greet everyone you meet as though they are going to be dead by midnight. This idea captures my imagination, I guess. Can you say anything about how that is working for you?
    Steve

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  2. Ellie Finlay8:31 PM

    No, this isn't inappropriate! It's fine.

    Actually, the problem is that it's hard to remember in exactly those terms. (My brain isn't as young as it used to be!) But, basically, this is not as weird an idea as it may sound like. It's a classic monastic practice - although we're typically trained to think of OURSELVES as being dead by midnight. It's an impermanence practice primarily but also a compassion practice.

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  3. ROBERTA8:51 PM

    that quote is on the back of my business card :)

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  4. Ellie Finlay6:03 PM

    Hi, Steve. I hope this gets to you as I can't tell which Steve in my email address book is you! :-)

    I just wanted to say that if you're the one who left a Food Pyramid receipt in the donations bowl this morning that, sadly, the receipt itself won't help us. What we need is the coupon they also give you called "Community bucks". (It has a bar code on it.) Sometimes you have to ask specifically for it as the cashiers get absent minded and don't hand them out. They come out of a different machine from the one that produces the receipt!

    I'll also contact Kathleen about this.

    Thanks so much!

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