Month: April 2014

Notice the space, not the furniture

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Entrance hall Sutton Scarsdale Hall 1919.jpg

Consider a room, which is naturally spacious. However we organize the furniture in the room will not affect its intrinsic spaciousness. We can put up walls to divide the room, but they are temporary. And whether we leave the room clean or cluttered and messy, it won’t affect its natural spaciousness. Mind is also intrinsically spacious. Although we can get caught up in our desires and aversions, our true nature is not affected by those vexations. We are inherently free. Once the mind is calm, instead of fixating on the chairs, tables, and so on, you see its spaciousness. Practice is life and all of its “furniture.” Practice helps us see the room and not attach to the furniture.

Guo Gu, You are Already Enlightened

The Cherry blossoms

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Cherry Blossom.jpg

You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest

and I smile and am silent and even my soul remains quiet;

It lives in the world that no one owns.

Trees blossom.

Water flows.

Li Po, 701 – 762

The two wings

Karl Duffy2 Comments
File:Bird in flight wings spread.jpg
The two parts of genuine acceptance — seeing clearly and holding our experience with compassion —are as interdependent as the two wings of a great bird. Together, they enable us to fly and be free.The wing of clear seeing is described …..as mindfulness. This is the quality of awareness that recognizes exactly what is happening in our moment-to-moment experience. When we are mindful of fear, for instance, we are aware that our thoughts are racing, that our body feels tight and shaky, that we feel compelled to flee — and we recognize all this without trying to manage our experience in any way, without pulling away. The second wing of Radical Acceptance, compassion, is our capacity to relate in a tender and sympathetic way to what we perceive. Instead of resisting our feelings of fear or grief, we embrace our pain with the kindness of a mother holding her child. Compassion honors our experience; it allows us to be intimate with the life of this moment as it is.
Tara Brach, Unfolding the Wings of Acceptance
photo bengt nyman

Noting

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File:Child standing in water and looking in net.jpg

The quality of mind we are talking about……. is a mind which responds to something with attention and then returns to its own natural state. It doesn’t elaborate on it, doesn’t get caught up in it, doesn’t get excited about it. It just notes that this is what is happening. Every time it happens, it notes it. It doesn’t get blasé. It doesn’t become conditioned. In this way, it is like a child’s mind.

Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a mountain lake

Sheltered

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Lamb sheltering in field in Penmachno - geograph.org.uk - 1433152.jpg

Wherever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass. If we keep this up, we’ll eventually find ourselves becoming able to manage situations we once found painful, scary or sad. We’ll discover a sense of confidence that isn’t rooted in arrogance or pride. We’ll realize that we are always sheltered, always safe and always home.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living

photo richard hoare

Work with whatever arises

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:OUT OF SERVICE (4014622426).jpg

As many teachers have pointed out, “the path is the goal”. That means that what we experience as “obstacles” along the way is usually just a sense of our own expectations falling apart. These same obstacles can be viewed differently, as the basis for reengaging our attention and working through whatever arises, whether it is a sense of purpose and satisfaction, or boredom and resistance, or a sense of futility. Work with whatever arises

Cyndi Lee, Yoga Body, Buddha Mind

photo prayitno