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.

the constant striving

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Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something you’ve carried all along. All that is needed is to let go of the illusions that obscure your true nature – the stories, the judgments, the constant striving. When you drop these, what remains is what was always there: your original mind, clear as the sky.

People think they must climb a mountain to reach the top, but in Zen, the mountain vanishes, and you discover you were never at the bottom to begin with.


Suzuki roshi, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

no effort needed

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Why do we strive at all?

Is it not because we are trying to escape from what is?

But if you begin to understand what is, then all striving ceases.

Then there is no effort, only pure observation.

Jiddu Krisnamurti, The Book of Life

Instruct myself in joy

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It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made out of grass?

Mary Oliver, Mindful

Sunday Quote: as you go

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To be a pilgrim is to notice the way the light changes the color of the hills,

to listen for the stories embedded in the path,

to let the journey rewrite you

Rebecca Solnit, The Blue of Distance

Cherish the present

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Impermanence is not something to fear, but a great teacher.

It reminds us to cherish the present, to cultivate goodness, and to avoid wasting our lives in meaningless pursuits.

When we truly understand impermanence, we live with greater purpose.

Master Sheng Yen

the turning of the season

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The soul’s ripening happens in its own time, like the slow turning of the seasons.

We cannot rush the fruit to grow, only tend to the conditions that allow for its flourishing.

Sacred time is cyclical, not linear. It invites us into the grace of waiting, into the mystery that unfolds when we release our grip on urgency and lean into the rhythms of earth and spirit.

Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred