Year: 2013

Doing less today

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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We do less by taking the time to rest mentally and physically in between or outside of our usual activities, perhaps instituting a regular practice of meditation, retreats, breaks, and reflection.

 We do less by pausing in the midst of activities: mindfulness practice (such as coming in touch with our breath in between reading or sending emails) and walking meditation are two examples.

 We do less by identifying and reducing unnecessary activities. In this case, “unnecessary” means those things that are not in alignment with what we want to accomplish.

Marc Lesser, Accomplishing More by Doing Less

photo shinealight

Concepts of how I should be

Karl Duffy2 Comments

looking out window

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

Living too many lives

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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“Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there? Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?”

“No”, she said quickly. “No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do that. It’s too much – livin’ too many lives.

Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one”.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Take a step back

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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The engine that makes this go is taking a step back and trusting the body, trusting the breath, trusting the heart. We’re living our lives madly trying to hold onto everything, and it looks like it might work for awhile but in the end it always fails, and it never was working, and the way to be happy, the way to be loving, the way to be free is to really be willing to let go of everything on every occasion or at least to make that effort. So the practice really works with sitting down, returning awareness to the body, returning awareness to the breath. It usually involves sitting up straight and opening up the body and lifting the body so that the breath can be unrestrained. And then returning the mind to the present moment of being alive, which is anchored in the breath, in the body. Then, of course, other things happen. You have thoughts, you have feelings. You might have a pain … memories, reflections. All these things arise, but instead of applying yourself to them and getting entangled in them, you just bear witness to it, let it go, come back to the breathing and the body, and what happens is you release a whole lot of stuff in yourself.

Normal Fischer

photo nicholas a. tonelli

Not leaning forward

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zen tea.

If your relationship to the present moment is not right,

nothing can ever be right in the future –

because when the future comes, 

it’s the present moment.

Eckhart Tolle

An inner voice

Karl Duffy2 Comments

surfing

Don’t ask what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Howard Thurman, African-American author and Civil Rights leader, in conversation with Gil Bailie