Month: December 2013

The key to contentment

Karl Duffy2 Comments

part whole

One who is content with what he has and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in life is far better off than the one who has much more but who worries about all he might be missing. For we can not make the best of what we are if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not. We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Let us therefore learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing.

Thomas Merton.

Sunday quote: Peace of Mind

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rockingchair

I know but one freedom

and that is the freedom of the mind

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Looking forward, moving on

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dawn 2013 solstice

The days have been especially short this week in Ireland, with dark mornings and darkness closing in early in the afternoon, and the wind and the rain making things seem even gloomier. However, this morning, after a very stormy start, the dawn shone bright and clear. For the ancients, this midwinter solstice sun gave some relief and hope, as it marked the rebirth of light after the shortest days of the year. It marked a turning point, a reversal of the lengthening of night and shortening of days. For us too, these weeks allow a period of reflection and can be a time of turning, as we reflect on what is stagnant in out lives and let go of those things. We all take wrong turnings from time to time, or need a period to start afresh. We move on, and look to the future, even in f we do not know what shape it will take

No seed ever sees the flower

Zen Saying

Light is within

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newgrange2345

I wish I could show you,

when you are lonely or in darkness

the astonishing light of your own being.

Hafiz

Light entering the burial chamber of Newgrange in Ireland at dawn on the Winter Solstice

Just how life is

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File:Tree in Winter - geograph.org.uk - 87151.jpg

You begin to see that there are seasons in your life, in the same way as there as seasons in nature. There are times to cultivate, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally there are those 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.

Chogram Trungpa Rinpoche, How to Rule

photo iain macdonald

Everything changes

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Hallway.ParHAdelaide.JPG

A quote from the new book by Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, which is  a profound reflection on the Satipatthana Sutta, one of the foundational texts in mindfulness meditation. Here he suggests a practice to help us get a real understanding of impermanence, to see directly the truth of change and in that way gain a helpful perspective on how to deal with the ups and downs of a day:

When we pay attention, we see that everything is disappearing and new things are arising, not only every day or hour but in every moment. When we leave our house, or simply walk from one room to another, can we notice this flow of changing experience – the flow of visual forms as we move, different sounds, changing sensations in the body, fleeting thoughts or images? What happens to each of these experiences? Do they last? The truth of their changing nature is so ordinary that we have mostly stopped noticing it at all.

photo mx