Month: October 2022

No ovation

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality – there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth – actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested… True heroism is you, alone, in a designated work space. True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care – with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world.

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

How to work with worry

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When unresolved energies begin to bubble up and flood the heart, they project onto circumstances in the external world. One’s thoughts can acquire tremendous drama, concocting scenarios that carry flavors such as passion or despair – and then spin the heart.

So we have to use breathing to gather those energies in, catch mind-stuff as it begins to trickle – or rush – out. Investigate: “How does this feel?” “This is the quality of worry.” And where in your body is that? Breathe through that, where in your felt body is the insecurity or worry? Breathe through that, extending compassionate attention. Energies may run out into desire fantasies. Where in your body is that craving, lust, passion? Breathe, cool, steady that in your body. Tackle them at the source rather than as the vivid blossoms of people, events, past and future that they create.

Catch them, handle their energy – and breathe through it.

Ajahn Sucitto

Sunday Quote: At peace

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Watch the workings of all of creation [“the ten thousand things”},
but contemplate their return to the source.

All creatures in the universe
return to the point where they began.
Returning to the source is tranquility
because we submit to heavens mandate

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 16

A different nourishment

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Do not ask
for flowery perfume
when I can give you
fruits of autumn

Do not reject nourishment
because winter is at the door
and already the old saints
have raised their brows
to contemplate eternity
We children of the moment
drink up the last of the wine.

Lalla Romana, 1906 – 2001 Italian poet

Abandon becoming

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

This holy life is lived for the abandonment of becoming.

The Buddha, Loka Sutta

The abandonment of becoming is often called “the lion’s roar,” the expression of utter freedom and utter majesty. It is so, as mystic poet David Whyte observes that “inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.”

May we recognize the condition of becoming every time it arises – noticing its need to be “the one who,” its need for the nametag, recognizing it as merely egoic hope for future contentment. Having seen where the nametag leads us – to a new “self,” a new birth, new suffering- surrender becomes a joy.

Simply being – with no need for becoming – becomes an ease and a refuge.

Kathleen Dowling Singh, Unbinding: The Grace beyond Self

Meaning comes later

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The blog passed 800,000 hits. Thank you all for your continued support.

We must look back over our lives and look at some of the accidents and curiosities and oddities and troubles and sicknesses and begin to see more in those things than we saw before.

It raises questions, so that when peculiar little accidents happen, you ask whether there is something else at work in your life.

It doesn’t necessarily have to involve an out-of-body experience during surgery, or the sort of high-level magic that the new age hopes to press on us. It’s more a sensitivity…. the concept that there are other forces at work. A more reverential way of living.

James Hillman