Month: December 2012

Adding to bare experience

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ethernet illustration Plugged In: ISP’s exaggerating costs of increased trafficEvery moment’s experience of an object will come with a feeling tone, whether or not this feeling is accessed by conscious awareness.  In response to a feeling of pleasure or pain, an emotional response or attitude of liking or not liking the object may also arise.  Most of us conflate these two experiences much of the time, concluding that a particular object is liked or disliked. However, in fact the object is merely experienced, and the liking or disliking of it is something added by our psychological response to it.  This difference is a subtle but important nuance…  It is the difference between “I am an unworthy person” and “I am a person who is feeling unworthy just now.”

Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind

Right in front of us

Karl Duffy4 Comments

What is right in front of us we see the least. We glasses-see-clearly-7take the plants in the room for granted. We pay no attention to the coming of night. We miss the look of invitation on a neighbour’s face. We see only ourselves in action and miss the cocoon around us. As a result,  we run the risk of coming out of every situation with no more than we went into it. Learning to notice the obvious, the colours that touch our psyches, the shapes that vie for our attention, the looks on the faces of those who stand before us blurred by familiarity, blank with anonymity – the context in which we find our distracted selves – is the beginning of contemplation. Awareness of the power of the present is the essence of the contemplative life. “Oh wonder of wonders”, the Sufi master says, “I chop wood, I draw water from the well”.

Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life

The art of resting

Karl Duffy7 Comments

cat sunlight2It is very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus and find creative solutions to problems. We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Activity and non-activity

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We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move

Tao Te Ching

The uncertain nature of things

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In the deepest moments of insight we see that things change so quickly that we can’t hold onto anything, and eventually the mind lets go of clinging.

Letting go brings equanimity. The greater the letting go, the deeper the equanimity. In practice we work to expand the range of life experiences in which we are free.

U Pandita

A thought to go with the weather

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There are times that are cold and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are. If you realize that each phase of your life is a natural occurrence, then you need not be swayed, pushed up and down by the changes in circumstance and mood that life brings. You find that you have an opportunity to be fully in the world at all times and to show yourself as a brave and proud individual in any circumstance.

Chogyam Trungpa