When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience
That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
Hafiz
Where to begin
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.
Walk in the dark
Perhaps the main lesson to be learnt from this year
My teacher Ajahn Chah would often respond to people’s questions, plans, and ideas with a smile and say, ‘Mai neh.’ The phrase means, ‘It is uncertain, isn’t it?’ He understood the wisdom of uncertainty, the truth of change, and was comfortable in their midst….wisdom grows by opening to the truth of not knowing.
For a long time I didn’t understand this. As I matured, I began to see that it is much simpler than this. At the root of suffering is a small heart, frightened to be here, afraid to trust the river of change, to let go in this changing world. With wisdom we allow this not knowing to become a form of trust. St. John of the Cross described it this way, ‘If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.’
Jack Kornfield
Sunday Quote: Our highest art
To affect the quality of the day,
that is the highest of arts.
Thoreau
Look
There are things you can’t reach. But
But you can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.
The snakes slides away, the fish jumps, like a little lily,
out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing
from the unreachable top of the tree.
I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.
Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
as though with your arms open.
And thinking: maybe something will come, some
shining coil of wind,
or a few leaves from any old tree —
they are all in this too.
And now I will tell you the truth.
Everything in the world
comes.
At least, closer.
And, cordially.
Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.
Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold
fluttering around the corner of the sky
of God, the blue air.
Mary Oliver, Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?
Space
A cold and frosty start today here in Ireland. Changing conditions in the weather. We work with the mind to enable it deal with the constant changing conditions in our days.
Meditation is giving a huge meadow to a restless cow.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Behind
There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time.
Pema Chodron
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