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.

Working with our anxieties

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We can never solve our lives. Life is not a thing that can be broken and then fixed. Life is a process, and we can never solve a process. We can only participate in this process, either consciously or unconsciously. We aren’t going to find the perfect formula and then coast our way through life. We can’t make pain go away, although we can reduce unnecessary suffering significantly. The more deeply we investigate, the less we can grasp or even know this apparent self that Western psychology takes as its foundation. From the Buddhist perspective, the nature of life — and of our own mind — is basically open. There is no foundation; no ground to stand on. We can consciously participate in this open nature, but we can’t know it.

Bruce Tift, How to Work with Anxiety on the Path of Liberation

Sunday Quote: Feeding

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We have a choice these days: to feed our fear – and there is a lot being spread on social media – or to drop the mind into moments of rest…

When we meditate, we are training the mind

to stop feeding a pain pattern

Ruth King, author and Meditation teacher, Soothing the Hot Coals of Rage

Noticing our inner critic

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What is this self inside us, this silent observer,
Severe and speechless critic, who can terrorize us
And urge us on to futile activity
And in the end, judge us still more severely
For the errors into which his own reproaches drove us.

T. S. Eliot, The Elder Statesman

Give, not get

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On the spiritual path, there’s nothing to get, and everything to get rid of.

Obviously, the first thing to let go of is trying to “get” love, and instead to give it. That’s the secret of the spiritual path. One has to give oneself wholeheartedly. If we want to be loved, we are looking for a support system. If we want to love, we are looking for spiritual growth. Love is the warmth of the heart, the connectedness, the protection, the caring, the concern, the embrace that comes from acceptance & understanding for oneself. Having practiced that, we are in a much better position to practice love toward others. We realize they are just as unlovable as we are, and they have just as many unwholesome thoughts. But that doesn’t matter. When we relate to other people, we can let them just be and love them

Ayya Khema

Forgiveness

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There is a simple practice we can do to cultivate forgiveness. First we acknowledge what we feel – shame, revenge, embarrassment, remorse. Then we forgive ourselves for being human. Then, in the spirit of not wallowing in the pain, we let go and make a fresh start. We don’t have to carry the burden with us anymore. We can acknowledge, forgive, and start anew. If we practice this way, little by little we’ll learn to abide with the feeling of regret for having hurt ourselves and others. We will also learn self-forgiveness. Eventually, at our own speed, we’ll even find our capacity to forgive those who have done us harm. We will discover forgiveness as a natural expression of the open heart, an expression of our basic goodness. This potential is inherent in every moment. Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start.

Pema Chodron

A time for doing nothing

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Let my doing nothing
When I have nothing to do
Become untroubled in its depth of peace

like the evening in the seashore
when the water is silent.

Rabindranath Tagore