Month: May 2012

Drawing a line and knowing when to stop

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The tendency in today’s world is to do more and more, to take on more tasks and responsibilities, to have a certain pride when telling people that we are “very busy”. For some this can mean the need to do more and more study, for others the push to get more achieved in a day, and for some others it even extends to an anxiety  to develop their inner life as one other thing to be “done”. However, all of this energy can mean that we find it hard to allow our work or our activities feel sufficient for the day or for the week. We find reflections on this in all wisdom traditions. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that “sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof “, encouraging us to deal with one day at a time, and not dwell excessively in the future. And I have always found the French translation of a familiar phrase from the Our Father to be more insightful than the English – Donne–nous aujourd‘hui notre pain de ce jour – “Give us this day our bread for this day”. In other words, enough to support us this day and no more. It encourages us to let go at the end of a day – or a working week – and be content.   There is a great benefit for our overall wellbeing in drawing limits to the amount we try to do.

“Enough” is a verb, a conversation, a fugue, a collaboration. It is not a static state, something achieved or accomplished. It is relational, by nature unpredictable, punctuated by wonder, surprise, and awe. It may feel dangerous and inefficient. It demands that we stay awake, pay attention to what is true in this moment, in our hearts, and make the choices always and only from that place. Then whatever we decide brings a sense of rightness and sufficiency, arriving with an exhale, a letting go, a sense that this, here, for now, is enough.

A life of enough is born in every moment — in the way we listen, the way we respond to the world, the way we see what is and tell the truth of who we are. Every single choice, every single moment, every change of course can bring us closer to a life of peace, contentment, authenticity, and easy sufficiency, a life of being, having, and doing enough.

Wayne Muller, A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough

Knowing the mind

Karl Duffy1 Comment

We already have what we need — the opportunity to weave the tapestry of happiness every day with the needle and thread of our own mind.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

See the world as a mirror. It is all a reflection of mind. When you know this, you can grow in every moment, and every experience reveals truth and brings understanding.

Ajahn Chah

The Body-mind

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Mindfulness is a form of Mind-Body medicine, a different way of knowing, a different way of being with our experience.  From an early age, and once we start school, our capacity to think and analyse is prioritized as the best way of working with what happens in each day. However, we learn in mindfulness is that through awareness there is a wider, kinder, less judgmental way of being with reality. We also come to see that there is a wisdom in our bodies which often “knows” much more than our thoughts. So tuning into our bodies is the fundamental daily skill of mindfulness. Broken down to its most basic from –  we focus on the breath in the body,  which allows us to notice our thoughts as they arise in the mind and, gently, gradually, let go of struggling with them. In this way we work with what has brought us to this day, as well as laying the foundations for greater happiness and health  in the future. Thubten Chodron quotes a Tibetan saying: ‘If you want to know about your past life, look at your present body. If you want to know about your future life, look at your present mind.’  There is a great wisdom in this.

The way this universe works

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Whenever you experience any pain or difficulty, always remember one of the deep meanings of the word “suffering” : asking the world for something it can never give you. We expect and ask impossible things from the world. We ask for the perfect home and job and that all the things we work hard to build and arrange run perfectly at the right time and place. Of course, that is asking for something that can never be given…. That’s not the way this universe works. If you ask for something that the world cannot supply you should understand that you are asking for suffering.

So whether you work or meditate, please accept that things will go wrong from time to time. Your job is not to ask for things the world cannot give you. Your job is to observe. Your job is not to prod and push this world to make it just the way you would like it to be. Your job is to understand, accept and let it go.

Ajahn Brahm, The Art of Disappearing.

What we use, we strengthen

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Inherent in any media technology – from the telephone to TV to Twitter – is an emphasis of some ways of thinking and a de-emphasis on other ways of thinking. If you look at the Internet, what it emphasizes is the ability to supply lots of information, in many forms, very quickly. As a result, it encourages us to browse through information in a similar way – by grabbing lots of bits of data simultaneously. What it doesn’t encourage us to engage in is more attentive ways of thinking – the mode of thinking that underpins deep reading, contemplation, reflection and introspection. All of these ways of using our minds – which to me, are very important are de-emphasized by the Internet, and as a result, we’re not practicing them as much anymore. I worry that as a society, we are in danger of losing them.

Nicholas Carr, from an interview with Karen Christensen

The mind needs training too

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The Tibetan word for meditation is “gom”. It essentially means “getting used to, familiarizing”. Meditation, then, is the act of familiarizing your mind with what you want it to do. That process fo familiarity is just taking qualities and abilities that the mind naturally has, focusing on them in a methodical way, and thus building your base. The bones and tendons of the mind are mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness is the mind’s strength and awareness is its flexibility. Without these abilities we cannot function. When we drink a glass of water, drive a car or have a conversation, we are using mindfulness and awareness. Unless we train it, the mind does the minimum necessary to fulfill a function. in that way it is like the body.…Without conditioning, even a sudden dash to keep our kids out of harm’s way – or to catch a plane or a bus – will tire us out.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Running with the mind of meditation.