Month: November 2013

Too little time

Karl Duffy1 Comment

wind the clock

Our relationship to time has become corrupted because we allow ourselves very little experience of the Timeless. We speak continuously of SAVING time, but time in it richness is most often lost to us when we are busy without relief. We speak of STEALING time as if it no longer belonged to us We speak of NEEDING time as if it wasn’t around us already in every moment. We want to MAKE time for ourselves as if it were in our power to do so. Time is the conversation with absence and visitation, the frontier between ourselves and those we love; the hours become ripe with happening only when we are attentive, patient, and present.

David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

Something more important

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Don't Even Think About Speeding.jpg

Speed gives life a frantic quality. It is an anxious state of mind that keeps us from settling into whatever we are doing. There is always something more important than what we’re doing now. We’re double-parked outside a store, trying to find what we need, while talking to our mother on the cell-phone. Rather than accomplishing our activity well, we are nullifying it, because we aren’t really there for it. That self-generated speed creates its own power and momentum, which begin to rule us. It’s a form of small-mindedness that blinds us to what life really offers — the opportunity to develop wisdom and compassion.

Wisdom tells us that we are meant to enjoy our life and use it in a meaningful way. A successful life is not determined by the speed with which we live. If we’re always flapping our wings, endlessly trying to get what we need with aggression, we will always be exhausted. We’ll never find what we’re really looking for, which is our own contentment. 

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

photo Katy Warner

Gently appreciating

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child

If we are willing to take an unbiased look, we will find that, in spite of all of our problems and confusion, all our emotional and psychological ups and down, there is something basically good about our existence as human beings. Every human being has a basic nature of goodness, which is undiluted and unconfused. That goodness contains tremendous gentleness and appreciation.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Gently breathing

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File:Buddha.jpg

If things get busy today,

a simple practice of reconnecting with the rhythm of breathing can help

Breathing in I calm my body and mind.
Breathing out I smile.

Thich Nhat Hanh

What I am living for

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nametag_thumb

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair,

but ask me what I am living for, in detail,

ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.

Thomas Merton

Not getting discouraged

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File:FEMA - 961 - Photograph by Liz Roll taken on 04-12-1998 in Alabama.jpg

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. 

Do justly, now.  Love mercy, now.  Walk humbly, now. 

You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

The Talmud