Category: Be fully present

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Awareness is the centre of what we call ‘mind’, but normally of course, the mind is awareness plus regret, or longing, or analysis, or sidetrack and rumbling trains of thought moving forward, backwards – or anywhere except the simply open present. So it takes training, but with guidance and effort, the meditator centres on awareness as the feature of the mind that is constant, irreducible and needs no comment. Consequently, as awareness releases from these associated activities, it is revealed in its depth and warm beauty. It’s a given treasure.

Ajahn Sucitto, Mind out of Time

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Waiting

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In the Islamic tradition,  during Ramadam,  there is a special night called the Night of Power, when angels are said to descend to earth, bringing peace. It is not known which night it is exactly, so the only attitude to have is one of waiting and watching. This is true for Advent also, but it even applies not just to special seasons but to the mystery in every moment:

God,
just like the Night of Power,
is hidden amidst the other nights
So that the soul
will go on seeking every night.

Oh young one,
not every night is the Night of Power
And yet,
not every night
is bereft of the Night of Power

Rumi

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Grace and wonder and mystery

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Everything we need or want is waiting inside each day … right before us in flawed abundance …nothing is clean or perfect, and nothing unfolds as planned.  For the Universe is vital, not perfect.  Full of endless seeds attempting to be one thing, colliding with another, and becoming a third.

 One of the more difficult paradoxes to accept is that this abundance of gifts is always quietly present and it is we who drift in and out of seeing it.  The one recurring doorway to this vitality is our simple participation in life.  When we slip into heartless watching, the abundance seems to vanish.  When we dare to show up and be fully present, grace and wonder and mystery start to appear, even in the midst of pain.  Not as planned dreams, or as images of lovers, or as scripts of success designed by our fantasies of ourselves.  But as oddly shaped pods of vitality bursting to multiply and bring us further into the mystery of living.

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk.

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Eyes fixed on the present

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We don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Howard Zinn, US Historian, playwright, and social activist

photo gordon hatton

Limits and choices

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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To live wisely, we must recognize that there are two fundamental truths of a human life. The first is that we have a limited and undefined amount of time — it may be 100 years, it may be 30. The second is that in that limited and undefined amount of time we have an almost unlimited number of choices of how to use our time — the things we choose to focus on and put our energy into — and these choices will ultimately define our lives.

When we are born there is no owner’s manual provided, and the clock begins ticking the moment we arrive.  We do not like the words “die” and “death.” Many human activities are designed to shield us from the truth about life; that it is limited, that at least here in this place, we do not have forever. Still, it is the fact that we die and that our time is limited that makes discovering the secrets to life important. If we lived forever, there would be little urgency to discover the true paths to happiness and purpose since given the luxury of eternity we would surely stumble on them sooner or later. This is a luxury we do not have.

John Izzo, The Five Secrets you must Discover before Your Die

photo AuntTT83

Living each moment fully

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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A long time ago three elders were talking about impermanence. One elder said “Of all those who attend this years party, who knows who will be missing next year”. Another elder said “What you are talking about is far away. When we take off our shoes and socks tonight, we don’t know if we will put them on again tomorrow.”. The third elder said “What you are talking about is still remote. When we exhale this breath, we don’t know if we will breathe in again”

photo markus michalczyk