The Hard Earth Softens

On April 28, 2008 I stood staring at my feet, feeling the last of a gentle rain, at Prince and Mercer Streets in New York City. I had spent the morning with my wife and daughter in the Conservancy Garden in Central Park, enjoying the two of them, the beautiful gift of Spring; the three of us together each taking in the scene at our own pace. I look back now on that day and think of the gentle teachings of Pema Chodron, who I had the good fortune to meet and study with a few years ago at the Omega Center in Rhinebeck, New York. Several hundred people. Each at their own pace. 

We try so hard to hang on to the teachings and "get it," but actually the truth sinks in like rain into very hard earth. The rain is very gentle, and we soften up slowly at our own speed. But when that happens, something has fundamentally changed in us. That hard earth has softened. It doesn't seem to happen by trying to get it or capture it. It happens by letting go; it happens by relaxing your mind, and it happens by the aspiration and the longing to want to communicate with yourself and others. Each of us finds our own way.

              --from Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron