Category: Be fully present

Waiting for us to make time

Karl Duffy1 Comment

quiet_place

When I was a child in New York City in the 1940s there were laws that attempted to legislate the Biblical injunction “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” Businesses were closed. Shopping stopped. There were no convenience stores. People needed to remember, in advance of the Sabbath, to provide for the upcoming day of rest and spiritual reflection so that, on that day, they could rest. The community collectively caught its breath. Family members spent time with each other. They renewed connections. They visited neighbors.  I like to imagine that, whether or not people went to religious services, there was the possibility in that period of a pause for reflection. “What am I doing with my life?” “Is what I am doing good for me?” “Is it good for other people?” “Does my life make a difference in the world?” “Could my life make more of a difference in the world?”

All of the important fundamental questions in life seem to be waiting, so to speak, next on-line at the top of the mind’s agenda, if only we give them the time and the space to present themselves.

Sylvia Boorstein

Making meditation hard

Karl Duffy2 Comments

ChangeWhen one composes one’s mind and looks inwards, there is a sense of coming to one point. If we are not caught in the thinking process, we can be aware of the here and now, the body, the breath, mental states, moods; we can allow everything to be what it is. The attitude of many people in meditation is that there is always a need to change something. There might be an attempt to attain a particular state or some kind of blissful experience they have had before, or even if they haven’t had anything like that, they might hope that if they continue to practise, they will. When we practise meditation with this idea of getting something, then even the idea of practice, even the word ‘meditation’, can bring up this conditioned reaction of: ‘There’s something I’ve got to do. If I’m in a bad mood I should get rid of that mood. I’ve got to concentrate my mind.’ If the mind’s scattered and we’re all over the place, ‘I should make it one-pointed; I’ve got to concentrate.’ And so we make meditation into hard work and there is a great deal of failure in it because we’re trying to control everything through these ideas

Ajahn Sumedho, Developing an Attitude toward Meditation

When we live fully

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heathers

You should train yourself thus:

In the seen, there is only the seen,
in the heard, there is only the heard,
in the sensed, there is only the sensed,
in the cognized, there is only the cognized.
Thus you should see that
indeed there is no thing here;

…as you see that there is no thing there,
you will see that
you are therefore located neither in the world of this,
nor in the world of that,
nor in any place betwixt the two.
This alone is the end of suffering.

The Buddha, The Udana, 1.10

Always wanting more

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flower in rocks

I do not talk of the beginning or the end. 

There was never any more inception than there is now, 
Nor any more youth or age than there is now, 
And will never be any more perfection than there is now, 
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. 

Urge and urge and urge, 
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Everything that happens today

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File:Library near Parkway (2988226785).jpg

True meditation is making everything — coughing, swallowing, waving, movement and stillness, speaking and acting, good and evil, fame and shame, loss and gain, right and wrong — into one single koan.

 Hakuin, Zen teacher, 1685 – 1768.

photo russavia

Sunday Quote: Fresh eyes

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eyes5

Nothing’s worth noting that is not seen with fresh eyes.

Bashō, (1644 – 1694)