Jeff Foster Quotes

Stop thinking your way through life, always trying to work it out before living it. Life is to be lived, not analyzed to death.

hay prisa. La vida no tiene prisa. Sé como las estaciones. El invierno no intenta ser el verano. La primavera no corre hacia el otoño. La hierba crece a su ritmo. La lluvia tampoco se apresura para llegar antes al suelo. Las elecciones que se llevarán a cabo serán llevadas a cabo, y no tienes elección al respecto en este momento. Las decisiones que se tomen se tomarán, los acontecimientos se desplegarán en el tiempo, pero justo ahora tal vez no necesitas saber las soluciones o los resultados, o cómo es mejor proceder. Tal vez el no saber es un invitado bienvenido al banquete de la vida. Tal vez la apertura a la posibilidad es una querida amiga. Acaso incluso la confusión puede venir a descansar aquí, donde tú estás. Así pues, en vez de intentar «arreglar» nuestras vidas, en vez de intentar resolver totalmente lo que no puede ser resuelto y completar con rapidez la historia épica de un «yo» ficticio, sencillamente relajémonos en un profundo no saber y permitamos que todo esté «fuera de control», confiando en el orden que hay dentro del caos salvaje, desempeñándonos dentro del cálido abrazo del misterio, sumergiéndonos profundamente en el momento, saboreándolo plenamente, en toda su singularidad y maravilla.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. MARCEL PROUST

Don’t try to trust; simply trust that you cannot trust right now or don’t know how. Don’t force gratitude; just be grateful that you aren’t grateful, love that the demand for gratitude is unnecessary. Love your inability to love fully, accept your non-acceptance, surrender to your absolute failure to surrender today. This is freedom, right where you are — the freedom to feel unfree, to taste life totally at the point of creation, to be exactly what you are, no matter what you are. Whatever arises, however unwanted, however disappointing, however ephemeral, say, “You are none other than life itself! I bow to you!

You are a complete mess, friend, unable to be mended. The time for solutions has passed. Yet stay close. Breathe. This is not the end. Come out of all your futures; no time for futures now. Look: you are an embraceable mess. A mess that is holy to its very core. You could never be what they wanted you to be. You were always too alive, too inquisitive, born with a heart broken open to life. They tried to close it, but it would never close. You wouldn’t fit in. You couldn’t conform. You could never squeeze yourself into their ideal of “perfection.” The perfect thoughts and feelings, the “right” way to be, the dance they told you to dance — your heart was always too big. Let everything flood in now. Give up. Fall apart. Break down. Let the old dreams of yourself die a beautiful death. Let all the lost fragments find safety in your loving arms. And in your falling, find yourself. And in your breaking, breathe. And all the creatures in all the forgotten Kingdoms are bowing to you now. Their savior. Their love.

Friend, I love your rebellious heart.

What you really long for is a deep intimacy with your own experience — the deepest acceptance of every thought, every sensation, every feeling. And that cannot come from outside of yourself.

"Oh, sweet little boy, beloved little girl, you are so overwhelmed by life sometimes, I know, by the enormity of it all, by the vastness of the possibilities, by the myriad of perspectives available to you. You feel so pressed down sometimes, by all the unresolved questions, by all the information you are supposed to process and hold, by the urgency of things. You are overcome by powerful emotions, trying to make it all "work out" somehow, trying to get everything done "on time," trying to resolve things so fast, even trying not to try at all.
You are exhausted, sweet one, exhausted from all the trying and the not trying, and you are struggling to trust life again. It's all too much for the poor organism, isn't it? You are exhausted; you long to rest. And that is not a failing of yours, not a horrible mistake, but something wonderful to embrace!"

And how easy this mechanism is to see in others! Can we see it in ourselves? That is the question. Who are your scapegoats? What do you reject in others that you secretly reject in yourself? Weakness? Failure? Fear? Homosexuality? Violence? What thoughts and feelings do you not admit in yourself, in order to hold up to the world an image of who you are?

Stop trying to heal yourself, fix yourself, even awaken yourself. Let go of letting go. Stop trying to fast-forward the movie of your life, chasing futures that never seem to arrive. Instead, bow deeply to yourself as you actually are. Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your deepest longing, your fearful thoughts...are not mistakes, and they aren't asking to be healing. They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly, in the loving arms of present awareness.

Learn to hold your own feelings like beloved children, however intensely they burn and scream for attention. Celebrate the aliveness in your hurt, the vibrancy of your disappointment, the electricity of your sadness. Kneel before the power in your anger; honor its fiery creativity. From this place of deep acceptance, you do not become weak and passive. Quite the opposite. You simply enter the world from a place of non-violence, and therefore immense creative power, and you are open to the possibility of deep listening, honest dialogue, and unexpected change. In suffering, you become small. In love, anything is possible.

Admit is a beautiful word — it means both “tell the truth” and “allow in.” To admit present experience — to tell the truth about what is actually present — is to recognize that what’s present has already been admitted into life. The waves appearing at present have already been admitted into the ocean, and admitting that they exist is at the absolute core of this teaching. Waking up is all about admitting who you really are!

The life you are trying to understand is identical with the ‘you’ that is trying to understand it.

Once you see what’s going on in your experience, once you see the seeking that’s happening and are honest with yourself about it, communication becomes effortless. There is no longer any need to work out how to communicate. Communicating becomes a matter of simply saying what you see. It is telling the truth about what’s really going on for you, in your experience — without expectation. What could be simpler than that? Clear and honest communication flows naturally from the realization of deep acceptance of present experience.

What you were always longing for is already staring you in the face and doesn't look anything like you expected it to.