November 2015 – Page 5 – Mindfulbalance

Sunday Quote: Jump

November 8, 2015November 7, 2015 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Forget safety.

Live where you fear to live

Rumi

photo calyponte

Learning to be calm

November 7, 2015November 2, 2015 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Now and again the earth begins to desire rest. And in the weeks of autumn especially it shows its disposition to calm, to what feels like a stasis, a pause. The ocean retains its warmth, while high white cloud-boats ride out of the west. Now the birds of the woods are often quiet, but on the shore, the migrating sanderlings and plovers are many and vocal, rafts of terns with the year’s young among them come with the incoming tides, and plunge into the waves, and rise with silver leaves in their beaks. One can almost see the pulsing of their hearts, vigorous and tiny in the trim of white feathers. Where I live, on the harbor edge of the Cape’s last town, perfect strangers walking along the beach turn and say to each other, without embarrassment or hesitation: isn’t it beautiful.

Mary Oliver, Where I Live

photo mozzercork @ flickr

Clearing a space

November 6, 2015November 2, 2015 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Our intention is to affirm this life – not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation – but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it’s own accord.

John Cage, 1912 -1992 American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist.

Preparing to live or living?

November 5, 2015November 2, 2015 Karl Duffy1 Comment

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Complete right now

November 4, 2015November 2, 2015 Karl Duffy4 Comments

Enlightenment involves derailing and deconstructing the sense of lack. It is getting rid of that piece of psychology that in every moment says, ‘There’s something else that I should be having right now. There’s something else that I should be right now. There’s somewhere else that I could go right now. There’s somebody else who’s got it better than me right now. I’m not complete right now. I need to be something right now”.

Ajahn Sucitto, Parami: Ways to Cross Life’s Floods

photo sookie

Here already if only we noticed

November 3, 2015November 2, 2015 Karl Duffy1 Comment

One day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place you had lived in before you began
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise
that first set you off and drew you on

and that you were more marvelous
in your simple wish to find a way, than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach: as if, all along, you had thought the end point might be a city
with golden towers, and cheering crowds,
and turning the corner at what you thought was the end of the road,
you found just a simple reflection.

David Whyte, Santiago from Pilgrim: Poems

About this Blog

Mindfulbalance supports the slow, patient practice of mindfulness meditation, as a way to find balance and meaning in life, reduce stress and develop health and wellbeing. It contains reflections to encourage the practice of meditation as well as occasional posts from psychology, spirituality and the wisdom traditions. The daily posts are prompted by Rilke's advice: "Write about what your everyday life offers you, your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind, and your belief in some kind of beauty". Written in County Laois, Ireland