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.

Where we do not wobble

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A succinct teaching on practice – developing a space which does not wobble –  and how we work with changing moods.

Through meditation practice we can access a core presence, which feels like an ‘inner’ state, where things are not happening, and the flow of events has receded. Thoughts quieten down, and we feel firmly grounded. There is a sense of singularity, of ‘just being here.’  This is a valuable basis from which we can look into the roots of mental/emotional behaviour. So meditation is not about getting into that inner state just for its own sake, but about using quiet firmness as a base from which to contemplate moods and mind-states. This entails not sticking to ideas of what I want and what should be, but really relating to what is present without reactions and bias. In this way we learn and develop non-attachment. 

Ajahn Sucitto

Dont grasp the snake

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If we don’t grasp hold of the snake

it won’t bite us.

If we don’t grasp onto the moods,  the feelings,  the thoughts

they won’t bite us.

Ajahn Jayasaro.

photo DVIDSHUB

A joyful mind

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This is the path we take in cultivating joy: learning not to armor our basic goodness, learning to appreciate what we have. Most of the time we don’t do this. Rather than appreciate where we are, we continually struggle and nurture our dissatisfaction. It’s like trying to get flowers to grow by pouring cement on the garden  A basic support for a joyful mind is curiosity, paying attention, taking an interest in the world around you. Happiness is not required, but being curious without a heavy judgmental attitude helps. Curiosity encourages cheering up.  We are so locked into this sense of burden — Big Deal Joy and Big Deal Unhappiness — that it’s sometimes helpful just to change the pattern. Anything out of the ordinary will help. You can go to the window and look at the sky, you can splash cold water on your face, you can sing in the shower, you can go jogging — anything that’s against your usual pattern. That’s how things start to lighten up.

Pema Chodron

photo Harold Hoyer

Create joy

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Life will bring you pain all by itself.

Your responsibility is to create joy

Milton Erikson, American Psychologist,

Being rather than doing

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baby steps

When people … put on masks, they hide their center from others and from themselves. They hide their source from themselves and from others. They hide their cry from others because somewhere they are inserted in society and they have their place and they are recognized in their power. So they wear a mask because they have a position to defend. Often their function is their mask. But when you are dying, you have no mask. It is a pity that we have to wait until our last breath to accept who we are!

Jean Vanier, Founder of the L’Arche Communities. 

Sunday Quote: Right here

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The highest point of happiness is to wish to be what you already are

Desiderius Erasmus,