Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty
Sunday Quote: Cycles of learning
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.
Clutter
The time has come
To stop allowing the clutter
To clutter my mind
Like dirty snow,
Shove it off and find
Clear time, clear water.
May Sarton, New Year Resolve
Appreciate
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Anton Chekhov
The heart
If I make a metaphor of my body,
it’s a desert. One part longing,
one part need, the rest withstanding. Of course
I would prefer to be thirsty
for nothing.
Kayleb Rae Candrilli, American poet
Seeking real treasure
I have just three things to teach
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures:
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 67
A rush to consume
In the second Noble Truth, the Buddha identified taṇhā – the urge to become, to have or consume more – as a main cause of our subtle discontent and ongoing stress. However, this underlying drive to consume can be observed and then its power diminishes. This is one meaning of “waking up”: becoming free by cutting off the momentum towards unhappiness at its source
If you sleep, restless craving (taṇhā) grows in you like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest you jump from tree to tree, never finding the fruit – from life to life, never finding peace. If you are filled with this restless craving, your sorrows will multiply like the grass growing after rain. But if you let craving go, your sorrows fall from you like drops of water from a lotus flower. This is good advice and it is for everyone: as the grass is cleared for fresh planting, let go of grasping lest death after death crush you as a river crushes helpless reeds. For if the roots hold firm, the felled tree grows up again. And if restless craving is not uprooted, sorrows will grow again in you.
Dhammapada
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