A glimpse is not a vision.
But to a man on a mountain road by night, a glimpse of the next three feet of road may matter more than a vision of the horizon
C.S. Lewis
Sunday Quote: We don’t always see the whole picture
Author: Karl Duffy
This is a Mindfulness Practice Blog written in Laois, Ireland, containing reflections on meditation practice, psychological growth, spirituality and wellness which hopefully may encourage and benefit others as they reflect on their lives and seek to develop a more balanced, mindful and conscious approach to it.
Watch with patience
Waiting and patience are two of the main themes of Advent
Let the apple ripen
on the branch
beyond your need
to take it down.
Wait longer
than you would,
go against yourself,
find the pale nobility
of quiet that ripening
demands;
watch with patience
as the silhouette emerges
and the leaves fall;
see it become
a solitary roundness
against a greying sky,
let winter come
and the first
frost threaten,
and then wake
one morning
to see the breath
of winter
has haloed
its redness
with light.
David Whyte, Winter Apple [extract]
What we are looking for is already here
We can often feel that our inner nature is rather dim or discouraged or that we are wandering in darkness, hoping sometime soon to reach clarity.
Today, December 8th, is Rohatsu, the day that the Buddha is said to have awakened, or attained enlightenment. In other words, he saw into the true nature of life, and through this, we are told, “the mind found its way to peace”.
It is said he meditated all through the night and in the predawn hours he looked up, saw the morning star, and exclaimed:
How Wonderful, Everything is already awake. How magnificent!
Thoughts prompted by a dharma talk given by David Rynick entitled Transcendent Enlightenment
Not limiting oneself
Forget distinctions
Leap into the boundless
and make it your own.
Zhuang Zhou, Chinese philosopher, 4th century BC
a life without regret
December 6 is the feastday of the legendary Saint Nicholas, traditionally a big celebration in the Low Countries, Germany and Eastern Europe. Most children have a natural sense of wonder and adventure which life has a tendency to erode.
Twenty years from now
You will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do
than by the ones you did.
Mark Twain
Dwelling in preconceived notions
Dwelling nowhere, the mind comes forth.
The Diamond Sutra
Working with this koan alters how I might meet the world in two ways. In one twist, the koan takes my attention to my thoughts and opinions about what I come into contact with each moment… – beyond the confines of what I can conceive of or label. The fact that I take mundane shrubs, trees, stray cats, and rain squalls for granted or even consider them to be inconvenient nuisances at times is something the koan quietly forces me to examine more closely. What would life be like without these images, moments, and experiences? Do I create an inner world in which only some of what is present makes it through my ingrained mental filters? If yes, what would happen if I deconstructed these borders and removed them? Maybe everything that graces my life has a subtle extraordinariness and that allowing this connection to blossom on its own is a practice that takes place naturally when I just begin to notice.
Don Dianda, author of See for Your Self: Zen Mindfulness for the Next Generation
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