Category: Be fully present

In one sense – its already here, so just trust

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Something deep inside us seems always to think that the answer to life’s challenges is to do more and push harder. And modern working life encourages this, with its demands to  produce more, and these messages keep the mind leaping to the next task or challenge. And so we live a lot of the time in the future,  thinking that our security comes from something that will happen there. In a practical sense this means that we will spend a lot of moments today trying to get somewhere else. The different wisdom traditions tell us that mental health is related to resisting this, and to living more  in the present:

Before a step is taken, the goal is reached;
Before the tongue is moved, the speech is finished.
Though each move is ahead of the next,
There is still a transcendent secret.

Mumon’s Commentary on Kempo’s One Way , in the 48-koan collection The Gateless Gate

Welcoming all parts

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I find hospitality to be one of the most significant and most challenging of all the monastic virtues… There is another dimension to this practice which we sometimes might be tempted to forget which is inner hospitality. Within each of us we have a multitude of feelings. experiences, and inner selves that we would prefer to close the door on. We have many inner strangers knocking at the door of your hearts. How many times have I refused to welcome grief or anger, the scary new dream, the embarrassing aspect I want to deny, or the part of myself that doesn’t seem to fit with others?

Christine Valters Paintner, Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics

Acceptance

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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True freedom is living as if you had completely chosen

whatever you feel or experience in this moment.

This inner alignment with the Now is the end of suffering

Eckhart Tolle, Silence Speaks

photo Sharada Prasad

Choosing

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid,

or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.

We always have this choice.

Pema Chodron

Enough light

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Donne–nous aujourd‘hui notre pain de ce jour

French translation Matthew 6:11

photo Sasikanth balachandran

Sunday Quote: Begin again

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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If the angel deigns to reappear

It is because you have persuaded him

not with tears but with your humble decision always to begin again

Rainer Maria Rilke

photo mark voorendt