Category: Be fully present

How not to get swept away in reactions

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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Mindfulness practice is not just paying attention, but involves a certain evaluation. In reality this involves paying attention to whatever enters through the senses and seeing what arises and passes away in each moment. One of the reasons we do this is to ensure that what arises is held lightly, and does not trigger off unskilful patterns of thinking based on our history and our emotional schemas. For example, if we see a certain reaction on a persons face it can easily trigger memories of the same reaction  in the past and that lead to us feeling less appreciated or judged. The simple contact today can lead to a proliferation of thoughts from the past. Thus we are mindful of each thing as a separate moment, without turning it into a story about how good or bad our lives are.

A person who has clarified their real state sees only

each thing,

each thing,

each thing,

and lets go of understanding an underlying nature for each thing.

Dogen, Uji

photo maitreya maitreyen

Depth

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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When we get anxious, our breathing tends to get shallow and our energy tends to move upwards, making us feel less solid, less grounded. Our thinking process too can speed up or get hooked by conditioned patterns of fear or unworthiness. We are, however, much more than we think we are. Pausing, getting in touch with this depth inside us many times during the day helps us not swept away by the winds that blow.

Our true life

lives at a great depth within us

Rabindranath Tagore

photo till krech

Notice the little things today

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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We can spend a lot of time each day as if in a trance, missing each moment as we lean into the next.  One way to counteract this,  and enjoy your life more,  is to let yourself notice the little things today with fresh eyes; simple things, like a cup of coffee, a smile from a colleague, the dew on the grass. In this way we pause and refresh the heart.

In the dew of little things

the heart finds its morning

and is refreshed.

Kahlil Gibran

Letting go of effort

Karl Duffy1 Comment

carrying load

Mindfulness and compassion training is a radical process of letting go of our burdens. We are not trying to be more mindful or more compassionate: that’s just more work. Instead we can sit down for a few minutes, see what arises and give ourselves love just because….just because. And then go gently back into the world.

Chris Germer

Take time

Karl Duffy1 Comment

spring crocii

If we can be quieter, more in the moment with what is actually happening, a world of perception opens up for us based on where we are, not on where we one day hope to be. “Nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small,” said artist Georgia O’Keeffe. “We haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” If we learn to take a little more time and be more fully aware of just where we are, we might see many new flowers and have many more friends.

Sharon Salzberg, The Power of Patience

photo from catriona.net

A force for settling

Karl Duffy7 Comments

rushing

It’s really important to be careful and attentive to how much one gets swept up into the busyness. Those are two different things — actually doing something and the frantic, busy, scattered energy that you bring to the task. Try to watch and reflect on the feeling behind what you’re doing. What is the energy behind it? Recognize where the feeling of agitation comes from. So much depends upon staying with the breathing — breathing into the activity of what we’re doing. Sometimes it helps to step back and slow down, because often less gets accomplished the more frantic you become, in terms of actual physical accomplishment, as well as in your sense of enjoyment and harmony with others. Often it’s more the attitude that we carry that’s problematic because you can only do one thing at a time, anyway. We carry around in our minds all the things we think we have to do and that stirs up this frantic energy. So just breathe into what we are doing, be with it, not getting too swept up. Make the breath a force for settling.

Ajahn Pasanno, Breathe into busy activity