Year: 2017

Sometimes an empty space is the best response

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Sometimes peoples words and actions can agitate and upset us.

We wish to react or maybe get fearful and withdraw.

However, sometimes doing nothing, not reacting or rushing to a definitive judgment, can be the wisest course.

Hold a space. Emptiness and form. Non-doing and doing.

Thirty spokes meet in the hub.
But its where the wheel isn’t
is where it’s useful.

Hollowed out, the clay makes a pot.
Where the clay is not
is where it’s useful.

Cut doors and windows to make a room.
Where the room is not,
there is room for you.

So something is shaped into what is;
but its usefulness comes from what is not.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Just flow with it

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When effort is needed, effort will appear. 
When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. 
You need not push life about. 
Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, 
which is the dying now to the now.
For living is dying. 
Without death life cannot be.
 
 Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1897 – 1981

Sunday Quote: Sunday Morning: Safe

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Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.

The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Unnecessary luggage

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He who stands stretching on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes all the time
cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can’t know who he really is.
He who tries to have power over others
can’t empower himself.
He who clings to his work
will create nothing that endures.

According to followers of the Tao,
“These are unnecessary luggage.”
They do not bring happiness.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 24

All work and no play

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We don’t stop playing because we grow old;

we grow old because we stop playing.

George Bernard Shaw

This day – do not waste the invitations

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We often rush through a day – preoccupied with the practical things that need to get done – that we do not have time to celebrate:

A journey can become a sacred thing:

Make sure, before you go, to take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward the territories of spirit
Where you will discover more of your hidden life,
And the urgencies that deserve to claim you

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

John O Donohue, For the Traveler