Month: June 2013

On not comparing

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Two Mountain Roads in Ladakh.jpg

Regret is an emotion, and it is also a punishment that we administer to ourselves. The emotional state has been well described by two Dutch psychologists, who noted that regret is ‘accompanied by feelings that one should have known better, by a sinking feeling, by thoughts about the mistake one has made and the opportunities lost, by a tendency to kick oneself and to correct one’s mistake, and by wanting to undo the event and to get a second chance’. Intense regret is what you experience when you can most easily imagine yourself doing something other than what you did. Regret is one of the counterfactual emotions that are triggered by the availability of alternatives to reality.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

photo karunakar raykar, two roads in the Himalayas

Doing simple things well

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File:Nakupni kosik.JPG

Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly

will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.

Friedrich Schiller

To live is to change

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File:Growing branch.jpg

In a higher world it is otherwise;

but here below to live is to change,

and to be perfect is to have changed often.

John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

photo ksmini

Bare Attention

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Mindfulness and some anxiety problems

Just know what is happening in your mind: not happy or sad about it, not attached.

If you suffer – see it, know it, and be empty.

It’s like a letter – you have to open it before you can know what’s in it.

Ajahn Chah

Everything is here

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File:Cherai-sea-shore-kerala-india.jpg

air carries the taste
of ocean-going liners

shadows of Canada geese
colour the salt grass

water trickles inland
suggests the threat of nesting swans

black Essex mud
refuses to take shape

I can live with this promise

that nothing is in place
but everything is here

Levinia Greenlaw, Estuary

What we are looking for

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Flowers_growing

All that we are looking for in life — all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind — is right here in the present moment. Our very own awareness is itself fundamentally pure and good. The only problem is that we get so caught up in the ups and downs of life that we don’t take the time to pause and notice what we already have…Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, pause from time to time and relax your mind. You don’t have to change anything about your experience. You can let thoughts and feelings come and go freely, and leave your senses wide open. Make friends with your experience and see if you can notice the spacious awareness that is with you all the time. Everything you ever wanted is right here in this present moment of awareness.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Letter to students before starting three year wandering retreat.