Month: April 2011

……Just watch stuff go by

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I came across a definition of meditation that it comes from the root meaning ‘right balance.’ That rang true for me because, personally, my attention is often so fragmented, egocentric, narcissistic or self-concerned that there isn’t a whole lot of inner balance or alignment with what is. Rather, I am stuck in a state of nonbalance. Right balance is when my mind is not spinning out endless movies and delusions, or maybe it still is but I am just not so attached to believing them. Meditation is when I can watch stuff go by and the part of me that usually interrupts and says, ‘That’s a good story, or that son of a bitch, or I’m guilty and awful,’ that part sits back and sees it as just one more story but without attachment to it.

Joan Borysenko, quoted in Oprah Magazine

Keep your mind calm….

Karl Duffy1 Comment

On an evening when an Irish golfer needs to stay focused, some thoughts on  a key early practice in meditation. Being mindful means we work on our capacity to simply watch our thoughts and emotions, allowing them pass through a stable  field of awareness without disturbing it excessively. To do this we need to strengthen our capacity to let go of distractions and  the running after happiness  by creating  a calmness and constancy in the mind that observes good and bad with an equal ability to accept things as they are. This capacity to focus – to be one-pointed in our attention – is at the heart of our freedom from anxiety:

Concentration is the cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. You can think of concentration as the capacity of the mind to sustain an unwavering attention on one object of observation.…….. A calmness develops with concentration practice that has a remarkable stable quality to it.  It is steadfast, profound, hard to disturb, no matter what comes up. You can look deeply into something if you sustain your looking without being constantly thrown off  by distractions or the agitation of your own mind.

Jon Kabat Zinn, Wherever you go, there you are.

Teens Day 17: Take care of yourself.

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself   –  if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting  yourself –  it is very difficult to take care of another person. To love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

…..and learn to let go

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The incredibly warm weather means that the birds are everywhere and active. The first swallows have returned. Birdsong fills the air at dawn and dusk. And they are busy….finding worms, building nests and testifying to life. We can learn so much about what leads to real happiness from how Nature works. When we are close to nature ,  in the mountains or in the garden,  we touch into a wisdom within our deepest selves, as Mark Nepo did, observing a robin building a nest:

It was a small thing, watching the robin carry a twig too big for its nest. It tried once, then twice to use it, and somehow…it knew it was no good. It simply flew off and picked another.

I went and found the twig. I rolled it in my hand and thought of the times I’ve labored, trying to make things too big fit. So often what we want is like that twig, too big to be of use, and we stay lodged in an unhappiness created by holding on to something that cannot complete our nest.

It was humbling to watch a small bird work, singing as it went, leaving what it couldn’t use as it found it. If we could only treat each other with such simple kindness.

from The Book of Awakening

Sunday Quote: Live confidently…..

Karl DuffyLeave a comment


Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.

Live the life you have imagined.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

Thoreau

Where we choose to focus

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities.

It is always our conscious choice which garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.

Sarah Ban Breathnach