Year: 2016

Stop

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Stand Still. Hoboken, NJ.jpg

This idea of listening and really looking and beholding, that comes in when people ask well, how shall we practice this gratefulness? And, there is a very simple kind of methodology to it: stop, look, go. Most of us caught up in schedules and deadlines, and rushing around. And so the first thing is that we have to stop, because otherwise we are not really coming into this place of moment at all. And we can’t even appreciate the opportunity that is given to us because we rush by and it rushes by. So stopping is the first thing. But that doesn’t have to be long. When you are in practice, a split second is enough to stop. And then you look. What is now the opportunity of this given moment? Only this moment, and the unique opportunity this moment gives. And that is where this beholding comes in.

David Steindl-Rast

photo Ali

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Time rushing by

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:Border collie running down the beach at low tide.jpg
A leap year, so we “gain” an extra day, some extra time.  How will we use it?
Why has time disappeared in our culture? How is it that after decades of inventions and new technologies devoted to saving time and labor, the result is that there is no time left?
We are a time-poor society; we are temporally impoverished. And there is no issue, no aspect of human life, that exceeds this in importance.
The destruction of time is literally the destruction of life.
Jacob Needleman, American philosopher, born 1934
photo kyknoord

Sunday Quote: Blessings

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Wuxi Taihu lake Changchun bridge.jpg

But listen to me.

For one moment quit being sad.

Hear blessings dropping their blossoms
around you.

Rumi

photo synyan

Settled

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Defense.gov News Photo 110406-M-RE261-012 - U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Cody Whitis a military working dog handler and his dog Gracie rest at Forward Operating Base Geronimo Afghanistan.jpg

And now the teaching on yoga begins….

Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.

When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded consciousness.

Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, c 400 AD.

Swings

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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Don’t define your essential self in terms of a feeling. Don’t say, “I am depressed.” If you want to say, “It is depressed,” that’s all right. If you want to say depression is there, that’s fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy. You’re defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake. There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are just the swings of the pendulum

Anthony de Mello sj

photo clementina

The path

Karl Duffy7 Comments

File:Coast path at Higher Sharpnose Point - geograph.org.uk - 1570182.jpg

We can learn to recognize that the difficulty is our path instead of trying to escape from it. This is a radical yet necessary change in our perspective. When uncomfortable things happen to us, we rarely want to have anything to do with them. We might respond with the belief ‘Things shouldn’t be this way’ or ‘Life shouldn’t be so messy.’ Who says? Who says that life shouldn’t be a mess? When life is not fitting our expectations of how it’s supposed to be, we usually try to change it to fit our expectations. But the key to practice is not to try to change our life but to change our relationship to our expectations — to learn to see whatever is happening as our path.

Ezra Bayda, Being Zen

photo philip halling