A long weekend in Ireland, a day without to-do lists.
Once your mind contains no plan
wherever you are, it is alert
Ryokan, 1758 – 1831, Japanese Zen monk and poet
Open
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.
Sunday Quote: Wasting this moment
You are fooled by your mind
into believing that there is tomorrow,
so you may waste today
Ishin Yoshimoto, 1916 – 1988) Japanese Buddhist priest, founder of the Naikan meditation method
parts of holiness
I don’t know who God is exactly. But I’ll tell you this. I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say, and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water. And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying. Said the river I am part of holiness. And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.
Mary Oliver
Always leaning forward
You will never experience the future.
You are always and only in the present moment
If you’re waiting on the future to feel joy, you will never feel joy
Katherine Morgan Schlafler, The Perfectionist’s guide to Losing control
abstractions
Anicca [impermanence] is very good for helping us break out of our sense of time. Time is an abstraction. We create it as a linear fund, something that moves forward.
But contemplate that. How long has this week been? Ten days? Some said that yesterday felt like 48 hours. And yet, whats ten seconds of pain? How long is a shower? How long is a cold shower?
Time then is a measure of desire – desire for continuity, desire for a certain outcome. It paralyzes us into expectation and anticipation or dread and worry. We skip over the present moment and get lost in something we imagine as out there in the virtual reality we call the future. But in the purest sense there isn’t any future. We are only ever here
Ajahn Sucitto, What you Take Home with You
Silence
Silence does not mean to push away or avoid all noise;
doing this is resisting the present moment and the joy and liberation it holds.
Silence means to refrain from succumbing to our habitual reactivity that gets in the way of fully experiencing the present moment as it is.
Rebecca Li, Illumination: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method
Mindfulbalance 