Letting Things Happen Naturally

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key?

Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go...

Letting things happen naturally is terribly difficult, almost ridiculously difficult, but it’s the only way. I used to worry too much in the past, it seemed I couldn’t let go of what was destined to be lost – …like holding a kitten too tightly or a flower that wilts if gripped too firmly” .

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

all around you

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If you want to see to the depths, you will need to slow down. . . .

Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary.

There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels.

Macrina Wiederkehr, Benedictine nun and spiritual writer.

This day will not come again

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Every stretch of time, whether an inch or a foot, is priceless. Life is made of these units, and each is an opportunity for mindfulness.

Not twice this day
Inch time, foot gem.
This day will not come again.
Each minute is worth a priceless gem.

Response of Takuan, 1573 – 1645, Zen teacher, when asked by a lord who asked how should we “pass the time.”

Sunday Quote: Circles

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Summer Solstice

The person sees the morning as the beginning of a new day; takes germination as the start in the life of a plant, and withering as its end.

But this is nothing more than biased judgment on his part.

Nature is one.

There is no starting point or destination, only an unending flux, a continuous metamorphosis of all things.

Masanobu Fukuoka, 1913 – 2008, Japanese farmer and philosopher 

What Are You Carrying?

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If you put down the stories you tell yourself about your life for one minute, what remains?

Let go of a hundred years;

Rest from the ten thousand concerns.

Let go with both hands and walk on,

Free from judgment and division

Shitou Xiqian, Chan Master and hermit, 700–790 Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage

Learning to Stand Still

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Silence is fruitful only when it leads to interior peace and stillness.

Contemplation is a country whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

You do not find it by travelling, but by standing still.

Thomas Merton