Contemplative Monday

The following quote is from 'Heart Advice, Weekly Quotes from Pema Chodron'.

RITUALS CONNECT US TO RICHNESS

"Ritual is about joining vision with practicality, heaven and earth, samsara and nirvana.

When things are properly understood, one's whole life is like a ritual or a ceremony.

That is what's behind ritual, these formalized things that get carried down 

in the religions of different cultures.

Ritual, when it's heartfelt, is like a time capsule.

It's as if thousands of years ago somebody had a clear, unobstructed view of magic,

power, and sacredness, and realized as if he went out each morning

and greeted the sun in a stylized way,

perhaps by doing a special chant and making offerings and perhaps by bowing, 

that it connected him to that richness.

Therefore he taught his children to do that, and the children taught their children, and so on.

So thousands of years later, people are still doing it and connecting with exactly the same feeling.

All the rituals that get handed down are like that.

Someone can have an insight, 

and rather than its being lost, it can stay alive through ritual."

A 'wall bell' we have at home.