★There's nothing to seek

Even though planting the fields and making rice is ordinary, unless you investigate to the full you don’t know their import. The ancients would reap and boil chestnuts and rice at the edge of a hoe, in a broken-legged pot, deep in the mountains — their fortune was no more than contentment; all their lives they never sought from anyone. Their nobility was no more than purity and serenity — what need for bushels of emblems?

Thus, “Having investigated to the full, you clearly know there’s nothing to seek.”

Pulled from the Book of Serenity I thought it was relevant in some ways to Laurie’s Glass Full thread, although unique enough to warrant a thread of it’s own.

What do you make of this?

˚ state of calm 💗thank you  

Posted on 16/09/2009.

Planting the rice-so much goes into careful harvesting.

Investigating this-> brings about gratitude for the result and the process.

…broken legged pots->don’t need the decorative just need functional.
Do your personal work, keep it pure and simple , and what you have will nourish all of your needs.

Happiness and being contented is a state of mind and comes from within.

Knowing this though, I constantly catch myself thinking: need to get there. I wish I was there. How do I get there. If I did …. if I had … etc.
Therefore, my todays daily affirmation :-)

Great passage, it speaks volumes in very few words. I can see why you posted it.

Lee, if you apply that to modern day, it speaks volumes. I think of those who are so deep in debt because they must continually seek material things to fill the void in their lives. They must consume and consume for the right cars, houses, electronics, clothing, etc.. and yet, they are never fulfilled. They must keep seeking. The debt grows. The stress grows. It is never enough.

How wonderful to be content with what you have now. Even if the only thing you have is serenity, what better possession is that?

˚ state of calm 💗thank you  

Posted on 17/09/2009.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~Hans Hofmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap, 1993

˚ state of calm 💗thank you  

Posted on 17/09/2009.

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. ~Elise Boulding

˚ state of calm 💗thank you  

Posted on 17/09/2009.

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson