Month: June 2013

Nothing lasts long

Karl Duffy3 Comments

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You never actually become anything for very long.  Sure, you seem to go through periods of agitation and tension, but with practice there are periods of joy and humour – and as you get more skilled in attending to the mind, the habit of holding on to particular states loosens up. You find yourself identifying with this or that state less and less; and that reduces the stress and turmoil.

Seen like this, human life is a great opportunity. We can always act skilfully
and cultivate the mind; we can always move towards goodness, happiness and liberation.
Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and non Kamma

How we see

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Ukraine-Uzhhorod-Streets-8.jpg

The mind is the source of all experience,

and by changing the direction of the mind,

we can change the quality of everything we experience

Yongey Mingpur Rinpoche

Never fully fixed

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File:Blurred pictures Night in Manhattan 20091205 018.JPG

Self-love involves a yes to myself in whatever I am going through, instead of holding on to some concept of what or how I should be. Any idea I have about who I am or who I should be is never accurate, for it always falls short of the living presence that I am, as this unfolds freshly in each new moment. Who I am is not a fixed entity but a dynamic stream of experiencing that is alive in every moment – when I let myself happen.

John Welwood.

Cup by cup

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dawn sun

But this morning, a kind day has descended, from nowhere,

and making coffee in the usual way, measuring grounds
with the wooden spoon, I remembered,

this is how things happen, cup by cup, familiar gesture
after gesture, what else can we know of safety

or of fruitfulness?

Marie Howe, American Poet, From Nowhere 

Fully here

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File:Strawberries East Liberty Farmers Market.jpg

When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything. The same is true of time. When you touch one moment with true awarenes, you touch all moments. According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, “The one contains the all”. If you live one moment deeply, that moment contains all the past and the future in it

Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home

Sunday Quote: Living parallel lives

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crossroads

Waking up to who you are requires letting go

of who you imagine yourself to be.

Alan Watts