Category: Be fully present

Believing our fears

Karl Duffy1 Comment

 

Sometimes we build a reality out of our greatest fears or anticipate the worst of others, when the reality is far from what we have constructed:

Unaware that our stories are stories, we usually experience them as the world. Like fish that do not see the water they swim in, we normally do not notice the medium we dwell within. We take for granted that the world we experience is just the way things are. But our concepts and ideas about the world, like the stories they are part of, strongly affect our perception of reality. In … practice, one learns, early on and then continually, the truth of my favorite bumper sticker: “Don’t believe everything you think.”

David Loy, The World Is Made of Stories

The awake silence within

Karl Duffy1 Comment
All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit
is to stop seeking something more or better or different,
and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.
Adyashanti

Like a giant tree

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind.

To be happy,

rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.

The Buddha’s Little Instruction Book

Create a space

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Consider the “forest pool” metaphor so popular in Buddhism. After inclement weather, the pool is muddy, full of sediment and debris. We cannot clear it by trying to control the contents – that would make the pool worse. We can only wait for all the sediment to settle to the bottom, leaving the pool clear again. So in meditation, by concentrating on the breath or our body or on sounds we can hear in the present moment, we create a space for clarity. We often find that in this spaciousness, an answer to a problem will simply “pop up” to the surface. Sometimes it won’t, but our bodies will thank us for a break from all the worrying.

Sarah Napthali, Stewing

To be peace

Karl Duffy3 Comments

When you are feeling overwhelmed, you’re trying too hard.

That kind of energy does not help the other person and it does not help you. You should not be too eager to help right away. There are two things, to be and to do. Don’t think too much about to do – to be is first. To be peace. To be joy. And then to do joy, to do happiness – on the basis of being. Being fresh. Being peaceful. Being compassionate. This is the basic practice. It’s like a person sitting at the foot of a tree. The tree does not have to do anything, but the tree is fresh and alive. When you are like that tree, sending out waves of freshness, you help to calm down the suffering in the other person.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Be Beautiful, Be yourself

Being content

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Why cannot we be content with the secret gift of happiness that is offered to us, without consulting the rest of the world? 

Why do we insist rather on a happiness that is approved by magazines and TV?

Perhaps because we do not believe in a happiness that is given to us for nothing? We do not think we can be happy with a happiness that has no price tag on it.

Thomas Merton