Category: Be fully present

Standing still

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File:Rosa Löffler-01.jpg

One of the words in Tibetan for a person can be translated as “one who is on the go” or  a “migrating being”.  There is a deep truth in this and we do not have to be at an airport to realize that we’re always going somewhere or continually in transit. There is a tendency to be  perpetually “on the go”, moving towards or moving away,  always in the search of a perfect feeling.

As long as we chase the myth, trying to get happiness by attempting to manipulate and control life – whether through trying harder to succeed, trying to please others, seeking comfort and diversions or even using spiritual practice to become calm –  we will continue to trap ourselves on the roller coaster cycle of personal happiness and unhappiness, And sadly we will never taste the true contentment that comes when we learn how to stay present with what is, exactly as it is.

Ezra Bayda, Beyond Happiness

photo Hans Stieglitz

Sunday Quote: Mysteries

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Those who are willing to be vulnerable

move among mysteries

Theodore Roethke, American Poet, Straw for the Fire

In the assumed, not in the now

Karl Duffy1 Comment

bali

It’s in the abstract, the assumed, the possible and ‘what others think’ that the mind holds its phobias – as life messages of abandonment or inadequacy … Those qualities aren’t there in specific direct experience: there’s painful and pleasant moments, but there are no life messages. However our daily world is commonly held in terms of non-specific generalizations, like its ‘another Monday,’ or, ‘a typical man’, or ,‘I dread meeting Janice, she’s always like this,’ or ‘I’m hopeless.’ In fact…. any sense of a lasting entity or state of being is an act of generalization. It’s a useful convention, but one that allows the mind’s neuroses and corruptions to be projected onto the here and now.

Ajahn Sucitto, The Low Point

Sunday Quote: Looking in the wrong places

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Christmas shoppers in Leeds in December 2009.jpg

How far I have to go to find you

in whom I have already arrived

Thomas Merton

photo mtaylor848

Becoming still

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen,

we can hear the whisper of the heart

giving strength to weakness,

courage to fear,

hope to despair.

Howard Thurman, American Author, pastor and civil rights leader

photo bananenfalter

 

Seeing the difference

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Heavy mist over lake Kaviskis (Lithuania).jpg

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.

Sharon Salzburg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation