#oridinary

There was a time in my life when I believed that the pinnacle of existence, the ultimate goal for me, and maybe all of us, was something called “spiritual enlightenment.”

I looked at spiritual teachers, imagined their perfect, stress-free lives, and I wanted to be like them.

I thought that the highest thing you could be was a spiritual teacher. That it was the pinnacle of all pinnacles.

I was wrong.

Life showed me - the hard way! - that true contentment lay not in the abstract, conceptual ideas of spirituality, but in embracing and fully embodying the everyday roles I once took for granted. True peace and joyful growth lay in learning to be fully present in the life unfolding right in front of me. Learning to be a better human, each and every day.

This work — the daily, humbling, sometimes very messy work of being more and more human — is my true path, and it always was, I realise now.

The treasure of life, the true enlightenment, is hidden in the unglamorous, imperfect moments.

Existence is rich with mystery and wonder, and sometimes, without warning, light can shine through the cracks in the separate self. For a few brief moments, there is the cosmic suggestion that life is somehow infinitely more than what it appears to be. The most ordinary of things can easily turn extraordinary, making us wonder if, perhaps, the extraordinary is hidden in the ordinary always, just waiting to be discovered.

"Bring on all the good with all the bad I'm all about it

"President Russell M. Nelson explained: 'The Lord has more in mind for you than you have in mind for yourself! You have been reserved and preserved for this time and place. … The Lord needs you to change the world. As you accept and follow His will for you, you will find yourself accomplishing the impossible!' So how do we come to understand and perform the work God intends for us? Let me share four principles that will help."

‘I would like to be effortlessly famous, like the Bodhisattvas and saints of ancient times, for the benefit of all sentient beings without any attachment to the worldly rewards of fame. My efforts to be famous, however, would have constantly changing results like the different masks of an actor and would probably pull me between happiness and unhappiness. So, maybe I’d better try to stay in ordinary mind without self-advertisement.’

strong as the love

and forever of the  shore

and where it stands

and makes a turn

and how it felt

and seeks as the glow of a heart

and what it seeks

and its own passion

and forever of the turn

and what it seems

and looks as the magic

and its own design

and how it  solved

and looked at things

as the power

and its own turning

and waters

and inside of joy