February 2011 – Page 8 – Mindfulbalance

Awakening Joy Course

February 9, 2011February 17, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Awakening Joy is a hugely successful Course that has been developed by James Baraz, a meditation teacher with over 30 years experience and one of the founding teachers of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. The goal of the Course is to awaken joy through principles and practices that incline the mind toward well-being, happiness and contentment.

I am delighted to announce that James and his wife Jane are coming to Switzerland in August to run this Course as a 4-Day Workshop, from Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th. This is a great opportunity for us here to deepen our practice and grow in some of the areas we learned in the MBSR Programme or since we started meditation. This Course goes beyond Stress Reduction and looks at how we can actually increase contentment in our lives. As I have written elsewhere, the brain has evolved with a bias towards negativity, and consequently we have to work at developing the attitudes and skills that lead towards positivity, gratitude and joy. This Workshop teaches those skills in a very practical way, with structured exercises and periods of reflection. It will be held in the beautiful setting of the Kientalerhof Center in the Canton of Berne, allowing us to relax in the quiet countryside while deepening our understanding of what leads to happiness in our lives.

There are a limited number of places on the Course so early booking is advised. Full details as to how to reserve a place will be posted very shortly. For the moment, just mark the dates and check out more details about this exciting Course by clicking on the link at the side. If you have any questions just send a mail to awakeningjoy.info@gmail.com

Living a life fully

February 9, 2011February 21, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I love the idea contained in these lines. Life is too precious and too short to waste it on regrets, or holding onto past hurts and misunderstandings. Today presents innumerable fresh moments to encounter people, occasions to reach out again, to let go of the past and to live with new eyes and love. What would it be like to live this day with as if it is our first, starting over with wonder, or, as many have to, as if it is our last, without regrets?

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Naomi Shhab Nye, The Art of Disappearing

Trusting in your own goodness

February 7, 2011February 7, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. Suzuki

Was out walking this afternoon in the lovely mild sunshine. Saw the beginnings of growth after this strange short winter, and a farmer working at ploughing her field. Got me reflecting on the conditions that are needed for us to feel safe and grow. There is no such thing as a typical winter; just the winter we have had. We cannot oblige the seasons to start and end exactly when we want. And as Winnicott said, when we were young, the conditions did not have to be perfect, just “good enough”. There just had to be enough security to allow us to be, before rushing us into doing. Parents just have to do their best and then the basic good conditions that allow love to grow take over. We just have to trust that this is the case.

If we do not trust, then we doubt our fundamental goodness and begin to push too hard or not do enough. The seeds may get laid down in infancy if a parent does not have an interior space or is confused in his or her signals. This can leave the young psyches having to do too much, too early, leading to us being “caught up in a false self and a compulsive cycle of “doing” to conceal the absence of “being”. In the adult ironically this lack of trust in being can manifest as the tendency to try to do more, to be perfect, to always give more. I see that I can get caught in this believed thought, seeking my security there. Then if something goes wrong I feel that is due to the fact that I did not do enough. A lot of energy goes into this self-judgment because it is dealing with material that is laid down very early in life.

The best way to work with this is to sit in silence, to nourish “fundamental trust”. There we return to just being and find contentment with that, no matter what the inner critical voice says. We do this in meditation. But we also have to do it in our relationships with others. One does not have to be perfect in relationships, no matter how others may expect us to be. There too, being is more important than doing : one just has to be present. We should not wait for the moment to be “perfect” to reach out and do something for others. This moment is good enough. What is needed is trust in the present moment, in reality, which becomes the most important “holding environment” for us. Trust means that we accept that things just happen in certain ways and are not due to personal failings on our side. And then we work with the moment as it is. It can be imperfect, but it is where we grow, even if we would prefer it to be otherwise.

In order to communicate very openly with the world, you need to develop fundamental trust. This kind of trust is not trusting“in”something, but simply trusting. It is very much like your breath. You do not consciously hold on to your breath, or trust in your breath, yet breathing is your very nature. In the same way, to be trusting is your very nature. To be trusting means you are fundamentally free from doubt about your goodness and about the goodness of others.

Dr. Jeremy Hayward

A rule of life

February 7, 2011February 7, 2011 Karl Duffy2 Comments

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight:

always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.

J.M. Barrie

What are you going through?

February 6, 2011February 7, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Mindfulness practice strengthens our capacity to be present for all that is happening in our lives. It also creates a space within so that we can be present to others. It is easy to be there when people are in good space, or when they make us feel good about ourselves. However, as the French Philosopher Simone Weil says in this beautiful quote, friendship is truly shown when one is able to ask the other “What are you going through?”. This requires courage and inner strength. To stick with another person when they are confused or frightened requires that we are able to put aside our own concerns for a moment and attend to them. Full attention is the most precious gift we can give another. It is not always easy because of our own needs and the believed story that goes on in our head when we encounter another person. Furthermore, when another person is afraid, it often raises fears in us and our first tendency is to withdraw. Paying attention means we are able to step back from our own stories and be there.

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not have it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough. In the first legend of the Grail it is said that the Grail belongs to the first comer who asks the guardian of the vessel, a king paralysed by the most painful wound, “What is wrong with you? What are you going through?” Only the person who is capable of attention can do this.

Simone Weil, Waiting for God

Well being comes from within

February 6, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We expend a lot of effort to improve the external conditions of our lives, but in the end it is always the mind that creates our experience of the world and translates this experience into either well-being or suffering

Matthieu Ricard