Slow Me Down

Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me,
Amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music
Of the singing streams
That live in my memory.

Help me to know
The magical power of sleep,
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down
To look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend
Or make a new one;
To pat a stray dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the soil of life's enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of my greater destiny.

- Wilfred A. Peterson


From - http://www.wingscancerfoundation.org/index.cfm?section=3&page=74

Being a Young Boy Sitting

"Unless you become as little children, you will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."


From - http://www.wide-awake.org/chap1.html ...

"In spite of the training, discipline, teachings, and practices, Siddhartha was not satisfied. He had been practicing for years, and still he felt no closer to the truth. When he got in touch with his body, he realized, "This is really getting me nowhere," he thought. He wondered whether he would die of hunger, failing at his task.

At that moment a young girl named Sujata walked by and offered him a bowl of rice milk. He didn't know if he should eat it. Suddenly a memory appeared before his eyes. He remembered being a young boy sitting in the shade of a rose apple tree while his father worked in the gardens. He felt protected by the tree and experienced a bliss and peace he had never felt before. In that moment he was doing nothing to starve or challenge his body, but something wonderful had happened in his mind.

"Maybe I have gone too far," he thought. "Maybe starvation isn't the way to freedom."

Returning to the present, he accepted Sujata's milk and drank, feeling his body strengthen. His self-righteous disciples were horrified. They accused him of giving up and they went off in search of someone more holy.

In that magical moment when Siddhartha had his childhood vision, he had been sitting under a beautiful pipal tree with heart-shaped leaves. Today it is known as the Bodhi Tree, or tree of awakening because it became the site of the Buddha's full awakening."