Category: Be fully present

Where we learn

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Grüner Pfeil.jpg

A nice reminder from Charlotte Joko Beck that we do not have to look far for things to practice with. Might be pleased to have a mosquito considering the cold rain showers we are having in Ireland.

Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need
at every moment.
This includes every mosquito,
every misfortune,
every red light,
every traffic jam,
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss,
every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction,
every piece of garbage,
every breath.

Every moment is the guru.

Charlotte Joko Beck

photo abenteurer morane

Not looking for right or wrong

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

open moment

Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there’s a middle way, a very powerful middle way. This middle way involves not hanging on to our version so tightly.  It involves keeping  our hearts and minds open long enough to entertain the idea that when we make things wrong,  we do it out of a desire to obtain some kind of ground or security. Equally, when we make things right,  we are still trying to  obtain some kind of ground or security. Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space  where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right?  Could we see,  hear,  feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again – to make ourselves or them either right or wrong.   

  Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart – Heart Advice for Difficult Times
 

Always labelling

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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When we taste something, what is the ‘realness’ of it? We can say, ‘It tastes nice’ but this is what we think about it, not what the taste is. We can say, ‘It’s a grape’, but that’s a designation, a perception, isn’t it? What is the actual taste? We say, ‘It’s sweet’, but ‘sweet’ is a judgment, isn’t it? We come to understand that the reality of it is indefinable, and that for most of our life we are operating at the level of interpretations and classifications, of secondary experiences, rather than living the actuality of it.

Ajahn Sucitto, Gnosis and Non-Dualism

Nothing to become

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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Mindfulness provides a simple but powerful route for getting ourselves unstuck, back in touch with our own wisdom and vitality. The most important point is to be really yourself and not try to become anything that you are not already.…. being in touch with your deepest nature, and letting it flow out of you unimpeded.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life

Where our time goes

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound,

productive by turning all life’s leisure into work,

and real by turning all our being into doing,

we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.

Thomas Merton, The Silent Life

Not leaning….

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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By pausing and accepting our experience, we free ourselves to respond to our circumstances in ways that bring genuine peace and happiness. In a pause, we simply discontinue whatever we are doing. We become wholly present, attentive and, often, physically still.  Try it now: Stop reading and sit there, doing “no thing,” and simply notice what you experience.

Taking our hands off the controls and pausing lets us clearly see the wants and fears that drive us. We become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future. We can continue our futile attempt to manage our experience, or we can meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of what I call “radical acceptance.”

Tara Brach

photo greymalkn