Happiness and the cause of happiness can arise only through loving-kindness and insight into the nature of things. There is no other way.
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
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.
Round and round
On this ever-revolving wheel of being
The individual self goes round and round
Through life after life, believing itself
To be a separate creature – until
It sees its identity with the Lord of Love
And attains immortality in the indivisible Whole.
The Shvetashvatara Upanishad , ancient Sanskrit text, c 5th Century BCE
Just for a little while
Just for a little while, stop thinking about all the problems, crises, tasks. everything that’s pulling and pushing on us.
Be in that quiet space.
After all these years, some of us still need permission to let go.
Melody Beatty
The sun still shines
A lot of wisdom in this:
The trick to having a happy life is to remember that it all comes down to what we ourselves make of the life we have.
“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so”, Ralph Waldo Emerson says, ” but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger and mosquitoes and silly people.”
Joan Chittister, O.S.B., American Benedictine nun.
Things arise and pass away
The Buddha takes something like suffering, (dukkha), and says it’s a Noble Truth. This was an astounding thing to be doing because humans think that suffering is a nasty fact of life, and we want to get rid of it. So we’re always running around trying to find happiness and security in the things that are always changing, and of course we end up suffering more. So just changing the attitude towards suffering is what the Buddha did. Not to get rid of it or blame it on anybody, but to recognize it. Then you’re no longer looking at suffering from aversion and wanting to get rid of it or blaming it on somebody else, but seeing what it actually is in the present moment: formations arising and ceasing. That’s brilliant!
Ajahn Sumedho, Remembering Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa
Change
Today is the Autumn Equinox, which is celebrated as a public holiday in Japan.
Imitate the trees.
Learn to lose in order to recover,
and remember that nothing stays the same for long,
not even pain.
May Sarton, 1912 – 1995, Belgian-American poet and novelist.
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