Category: Be fully present

Tolerance for uncertainty

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:The steep slope down from Meall a Coire Leith - geograph.org.uk - 1002952.jpg
There is a deep-seated tendency, it’s almost a compulsion, to distract ourselves, even when we’re not consciously feeling uncomfortable. There’s a background hum of edginess, boredom, restlessness. As I’ve said, during my time in retreat where there were almost no distractions, even there I experienced this deep uneasiness.…..We feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing…Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty
Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap
photo david brown

Where to place our attention

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Frown (8187991157).jpg

De Toqueville’s insight into the human mind, although made during his visit to the USA in 1831, probably applies even more so today,  as we are continually made aware of the variety of things which we “need” and experiences we cannot live without:

I  have seen the freest and most educated men in the happiest circumstances the world can afford;

yet it seemed to me that a cloud hung on their brow and they appeared serious and almost sad even when they were enjoying themselves…

because they never stop thinking of the things they have not got.

[songent sans cesse aux biens qu’ils n’ont pas]

Alexis de Toqueville, French Political thinker,  De la Democratie en Amerique, (1835) Chapitre XIII

photo psyberartist

Seeing the different people

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting (080) (7395918716).jpg
There are many different ideas of “you” in your mind, each with its own agenda. Each of these “you’s” is a member of the committee of the mind. This is why the mind is less like a single mind and more like an unruly throng of people: lots of different voices, with lots of different opinions about what you should do. Some members of the committee are open and honest about the assumptions underlying their central desires. Others are more obscure and devious. This is because each committee member is like a politician, with its own supporters and strategies for satisfying their desires. One of the purposes of meditation is to bring these dealings out into the open, so that you can bring more order to the committee — so that your desires for happiness work less at cross purposes, and more in harmony as you realize that they don’t always have to be in conflict.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Sunday Quote: Every day as something new

Karl Duffy1 Comment

earlz morning menton

Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior

that every single day he made a fresh beginning.

Abba Poemen (c. 340–450) was an Egyptian monk and one of the early Desert Fathers

….Not taking things personally

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Small boat on Baltic see.jpg

In fully allowing conditions to be what they are, we stabilize our hearts and find peace. It’s like putting a boat into water. We make an ark of truth: ‘the conditions are like this,’ and in that truth, we  don’t adopt the conditions as our own. This is important: you can’t drain the sea, but you don’t have to drown.

Ajahn Sucitto, Parami

photo pmalkowski

 …

Welcoming everything that happens today

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Ceremonial Tea in Japan.jpg

The understanding of welcome, outlined in this post, applies not just to other people but also to the emotions and thoughts provoked by everything that happens today:

Hospitality means creating welcoming space for the other. Henri J. Nouwen notes that the Dutch word for hospitality, gastvrijheid, means ‘the freedom of the guest.’ It entails creating not just physical room but emotional spaciousness where the stranger can enter and be himself or herself, where the stranger can become ally instead of threat, friend instead of enemy: “That precious experience — when contemplated, cherished, and celebrated — enables me in turn to welcome others: I begin to be less fearful of the other; I start to see the stranger as gift. I become willing to create space in myself to invite the other in, and I open myself to the possibility of being changed by the presence of the other“.
Sister Marilyn Lacey, Creating Welcoming Space, from Awakin org
photo hyougushi