Category: Be fully present

Living in the midst of uncertainty

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In the Christian calendar,  this is the last week of the year, so some of the reflections around this time are on how to arrive at the end of one’s life without regret and with a sense of acceptance and wisdom. Do we ever get to any real place of resolution in this world?

This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess and that’s what I mean by Hallelujah…. That’s what it’s all about. It says that none of this – you’re not going to be able to work this thing out – you’re not going to be able to set – this realm does not admit to revolution – there’s no solution to this mess. The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say ‘Look, I don’t understand a fucking thing at all – Hallelujah! That’s the only moment that we live here fully as human beings.

Leonard Cohen

Monday morning choice

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Its not so much what happens in a day that causes suffering, but our response to it:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms —

to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,

to choose one’s own way.

Viktor Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning

Sunday Quote: Cold and warmth

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Similar to Mary Oliver’s quote last Sunday: a walk today shows that life’s experience is a mixture –  cold frost and warm colour. Sheep and goats, as today’s Gospel parable reminds us.

A world of grief and pain, 
Flowers bloom
Even then.

Issa, 1763 –  1828, Japanese Buddhist poet.

Some of his poems reflect his attempts to come to terms with the premature passing of his children.

Only half a circle

Karl Duffy3 Comments

 

The creator of the universe loves circles: time and space are circles, the day is a circle, the year is a circle, the earth is a circle.

But when creating and fashioning the human heart, the creator only created a half-circle, so that there is something ontologically unfinished in human nature.

The beautiful irony is that even though we’re housed in separate bodies there is a profound hidden tissue of absolute connection between us. The Celtic tradition sensed that no one lives for herself alone. Your call to discover who you are and to bring your soul into birth is also a great act of creativity toward everyone else.

John O’Donohue, The Presence of Compassion

 

How we work with things

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Our life is not defined by its experiences

but by the heart that receives them

Stephen Levine

Don’t interpret

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Cold weather forecast for today, with snow possible on higher ground:

A monk wanted to know what was Mahaprajna, Great or Absolute Wisdom. The Master answered:

“The snow is falling fast and all is enveloped in mist.”

The monk remains silent. The Master asks: “Do you understand?”“No, Master, I do not”. 

Thereupon the Master composed a verse for him:

Great Wisdom: It is neither taking in nor giving up. 
If one understands it not, The wind is cold, the snow is falling.

The monk is ‘trying to understand” when in fact he ought to try to look. The apparently mysterious and cryptic sayings  become much simpler when we see them in the whole context of “mindfulness” or awareness, which in its most elementary form consists in “bare attention” which simply sees what is right there and does not add any comment, any interpretation, any judgment, any conclusion. It just sees. 

If one reaches the point where understanding fails, this is not a tragedy:

it is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking.

Perhaps there is nothing to figure out after all: perhaps we only need to wake up.

Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite,