Early Spring growth is all around, reminding us to trust…
Settling, white dew
does not discriminate,
each drop its home.
Nishiyama Sōin, 1605 – 1682 Japanese poet, founder of the Danrin school of haikai poetry
Settle
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.
Ways of transformation
Most people today seems to think that sacrifice means giving something up. This is how shallow our religious sense has become.
Sacrifice really involves the art of drawing energy from one level and reinvesting it at another level to produce a higher form of consciousness.
Robert Johnson, Jungian Analyst, Balancing Heaven and Earth
Not lost
Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done.
That which seems like a false step is the next step.
Agnes Martin, 1912 – 2004), American abstract painter, Writings
An anxious reach
The start of the season of Lent in the Christian tradition. The word Lent comes perhaps from the Old English and refers to the lengthening of the days in Spring. Most spiritual and wisdom traditions around the world have periods when we are encouraged to simplify things down to better see what is important or to dedicate more time to reflection and silence.
The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible. The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere in the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties, something that, if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellows.…
The need to diet, which we know so well in relation to food, and which runs so contrary to our natural impulse, is something we now have to relearn in relation to knowledge, people and ideas.
We require periods of fast in the life of our minds no less than in that of our bodies.
Alian de Botton, School of life: Distraction-concentration
The still centre
Life is completely still.
It is without excitement.
It is always still, indifferent to whether or not your life is dramatic
Joko Dave Haselwood, 1931 – 2014, Zen teacher
for Eimear and Brenton, who recently welcomed beautiful little Oscar into the world
Trust in your experience
This is an exquisite truth:
Saints and ordinary folk are the same from the start.
Inquiring about a difference
is like asking to borrow string when you already have a good strong rope.
Every Dharma is known in the heart.
After rain, the mountain colors intensify.
Once you become familiar with the design of fate’s illusions
Your ink-well will contain all of life and death.
from the great Hsu Yun, 1840 – 1959, renowned Chan (Zen) Buddhist, regarded as the greatest Buddhist teacher in China in the modern era.
found in Grainger, The Longing In Between: Sacred Poetry From Around The World
