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.

Present for a new day

Karl DuffyLeave a comment
This morning, at dawn, I understand that this new day does not resemble any other, that this morning is unique.  We often think that we store away certain mornings for later.  But it is impossible.  Each morning is special, unique.  My friend, how do you find this morning?  It is here for the first time in our lives?  Is it the repetition of a past morning?  My friend, when we are not present, mornings repeat themselves.  If we are present in front of life, each morning is a new space, a new time. 
Thich Nhat Hanh, in Call Me By My True Names

When we live best

Karl Duffy1 Comment

But the silence in the mind is when we live best, within
listening distance of the silence we call God. This is the deep
calling to deep of the psalm-writer, the bottomless ocean.
We launch the armada of
our thoughts on, never arriving.

It is a presence, then,
whose margins are our margins;
that calls us out over our own fathoms. What to do but draw a little nearer to
such ubiquity by remaining still?

R.S Thomas

Blessed by everything we meet

Karl Duffy1 Comment

 

The more alert we become to the blessings that flow into us from everything we touch,

the more our own touch will bring blessing.

Br. David Stendl-Rast

Three parts to our distress

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Our psychological distress is composed of at least three elements: the basic pain of feelings that seem overwhelming; the contracting of body and mind to avoid feeling this pain; and the stress of continually having to prop up and defend an identity based on this avoidance and denial. One of the main ways we try and hold our identity together is by developing an elaborate web of rationalizations – stories about the way we are or reality is – to justify our denial and avoidance.

John Welwood, Toward A Psychology of Awakening

Lean towards, not away

Karl Duffy4 Comments

The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you are feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in……Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering – yours, mine, and that of all living beings.

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap

A simple mirror to what is happening

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

All of these [meditation] instructions apply the perspective of bare attention to whatever experience arises. “Bare” here means simple, direct, non-interfering and non judging. Attention refers to mindfulness, awareness,not forgetting. So bare attention is simple, direct, non-interfering awareness. Alert and relaxed we are not looking for any experience in particular, we are simply awake to what presents itself. Observing in this way opens up worlds we may have never noticed ….

Sometimes the simplest things are overlooked because they are so simple. A profound aspect of bare attention is its natural capacity to include everything. When we are just being with what is, nothing falls outside of the way of awareness. A mirror doesn’t choose what to reflect; its nature simply reflects whatever comes before it. Can we practice this same mirror-like wisdom of mind?

Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma