Month: March 2012

On not waiting too long…….to live your life

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The great Indian poet Kabir reminding us that at every moment in our life we are challenged to live fully.  We need not wait for some time in the future to find the “right conditions” for happiness. There is no such thing as a perfect time. Now is the only time we have –  to face into our fears, to shake off what we know is holding us back, to let go of whatever we are carrying that  no longer gives us life, to cross the river ahead of us.

Wherever you are is the entry point

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road,
and no road.

Be strong then, and
enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place
for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don’t go off somewhere else

If you don’t break your ropes
while you’re alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

The choice to be still

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Practicing mindfulness meditation is making the choice to be still — to step into the quiet shade instead of running away from difficult thoughts and feelings. We sometimes call meditation non-doing. Instead of being swept away by our usual conditioned reactions, we’re quiet and watchful, fully present with what is, touching it deeply, being touched by it, and seeing what is happening in the simplest and most direct fashion possible. Doing nothing really means not doing many of the things we usually do, like holding on to or hiding from our experience, so that we can get new perspectives, new insights, and new sources of strength.

Sitting quietly and observing mindfully is a particularly productive way of “doing” nothing. Through the regular practice of meditation we discover the real happiness of simplicity, of connection, of presence. We come closer and closer to living each day in accord with this lovely quotation from Wordsworth: “With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.”

Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

A work in progress

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Self-actualization is not a sudden happening or even the permanent result of long effort. The eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist poet-saint Milarupa suggested: “Do not expect full realization; simply practice every day of your life.” A healthy person is not perfect but perfectible, not a done deal but a work in progress. Staying healthy takes discipline, work, and patience, which is why our life is a journey and perforce a heroic one.

David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships

Learning from the return of Spring

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If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving
and for once could do nothing
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Pablo Nerudo, Keeping Quiet

Claim your own happiness

Karl Duffy1 Comment

One of the greatest disciplines of existence, especially as we grow older, is the discipline of innocence and of keeping the sense of wonder and enlargement and surprise alive in your own heart. And the moment that you stop, in a sense, living from your innocence is the moment where you start to feel besieged by existence and the moment you need defences and walls. And no matter how high you build these walls, the encroaching sea of existence will actually scour them away. And you will somehow be revealed. But because you lived in exile from what is innocent and real about yourself, what frightens you most in life is your own happiness. I think one of the most difficult things in life is claiming your own happiness.

David Whyte, The Creative Imperative

The address of life

Karl Duffy1 Comment

“I have arrived” is our practice. When we breathe in, we take refuge in our in-breath,  and we say “I have arrived”. When we make a step, we take refuge in our step, and we say “I have arrived”.  This is not a statement to yourself or to another person.  “I have arrived” means I have stopped running, I have arrived in the present moment, because only the present moment contains life.

Stopping running is a very important practice . We have been running all our life: we believe that peace happiness and success are present in some other place and time. We don’t know that  everything – peace happiness and stability – should be looked for in the here and now. This is the address of life –  the intersection of here and now.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Happiness