Month: September 2013

Living with meaning

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Wine glass.jpg

Yesterday was a long rainy day here in Ireland and a sense of autumn approaching has settled into the days. So I will post for the next few days some reflections on maturing and deepening, and the meaning of fruitfulness in life, as opposed to just indicators of “success”.

The central paradox of our current feel-good culture is that we grow progressively more and more uncertain and less and less persuaded that our lives really mean something. Feeling good is a poor measure of a life, but living meaningfully is a good one, for then we are living a developmental rather than regressive agenda. We never get it all worked out anyway. Life is ragged, and truth is still more raggedy. The ego will do whatever it can to make itself more comfortable; but the soul is about wholeness, and this fact makes the ego even more uncomfortable. Wholeness is not about comfort, or goodness, or consensus — it means drinking this brief, unique, deeply rooted vintage to its dregs.

James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of LIfe

photo Scmtb49

The one question

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Path 2

Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was Young. And my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: “Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.”

         Carlos Casteneda.

Seeing connections

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Chain Link.JPG

The world is a closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through. Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. … Every separation is a link.

Simone Weil

Simple instructions to guide us

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Stillness_Speaks_Eckhart_Tolle-resized-600

Very easy to say but which in reality requires ongoing practice to achieve. However, these are as succinct a guide to meditation as you will ever find. Because of the hectic pace of life in the world today and here in Ireland, this practice is no longer a luxury, but is a necessity for overall health:

Let the body assume its natural ease.

Let the mind assume its natural ease.

Now, just stay alert to anything that arises to disturb that natural ease.

Ajahn Amaro

Hurry up

Karl Duffy2 Comments
File:Child painting.JPG
 
I watched the Ireland People of The Year Awards on Saturday evening, which showcased extraordinary people who have helped others or overcome adversity in their own lives, like nine-year-old Joe Prendergast,  who was determined to write a book and dedicate it to his father who died slowly of lung cancer. He is now completing his third book, and donates the proceeds to Cancer research. But there was also an example of everyday “extraordinary” commitment in the simple story of the man who won “Dad of the Year”. He is a fireman who,  having seen how easily lives can be changed in a second, tries to make the moments of each day special for his children.  His young son said that his father allows him do most things, including allowing “him to get dirty”.  As this poem reminds us, how we model our priorities and our use of time is easily picked up by our children:
 
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store   
and the gas station and the green market and   
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,   
as she runs along two or three steps behind me   
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.   
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?   
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?   
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,   
Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry—   
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.   
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking   
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,   
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.
 
 
Marie Howe, “Hurry” from When She Named Fire
 
photo zivya

Rushing, time, and opening to our lives

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Child drawing.jpg

It doesn’t actually take any more time to say good-bye or hug you know, your children or whatever it is in the morning when you’re on your way to work. But the mind says, ‘I don’t have any time for this.’ But actually that’s all you have time for, is this because there’s nothing else than this…So when your four year-old can’t decide which dress she wants to wear, that’s not a problem for you, unless you make it a problem for you. That’s just the way four year-olds are. And the more we can sort of learn these lessons the more we will not be in some sense running towards our death, but in a sense opening to our lives.

Jon Kabat Zinn

photo D Sharon Pruitt