Category: Be fully present

Just witness, not judging yourself

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Maybe you have a hard time getting up in the morning. Just make that conscious. Maybe you are a night owl and you prefer waking up late, you find early morning’s difficult. You do not need to fit your mind’s image of the perfect meditator – just witness the struggle of your mind, or your discomfort. If your mind is bright or comfortable in the morning then notice that too. The more you witness and take refuge in the knowing mind, the more you will find that whatever needs to be discarded will be discarded. Whatever is not useful will just naturally fall away, but not through rejection or aversion,  simply through the knowing of the experience in each moment.

Ajahn Sundara, The Knowing Mind

Taking our place

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Each of us has a place in this world. Taking that place, I have come to feel, is our real job as human beings. We are not generic people, we are individuals, and when we appreciate that fact completely and allow ourselves to embrace it and grow into it fully, we see that our unique place in this world is the one thing that gives us a sense of ultimate fulfillment.

To take our place is to mature, and to grow into what we are. Mostly we take maturity for granted, as if it were something that comes quite naturally and completely as our bodies grow and our minds and hearts fill up with life experience. In fact, however, few of us are truly mature individuals; few of us really occupy our places. We are merely living out a dream of maturity, a set of received notions and images that passes for adulthood. What does it really mean to grow up? How do we do the work that will nurture a truly mature heart from which can flow healing words and deeds? Each of our lives depends on our undertaking the exploration that these questions urge us toward. And the mystery is that the whole world depends on each of us to take this human journey.

Norman Fischer, Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up

Sunday Quote: Where to put our attention

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

 

Don’t look for meaning in the words.

Listen to the silences.

Samuel Beckett

Why accepting the ordinary is good

Karl Duffy1 Comment

It’s difficult to be ordinary and accept the triviality of our life. That’s why most of the time we feel frustrated, because we think somehow things are going to be different, or that they should be different, don’t we? We sense that life shouldn’t be just getting up in the morning, having breakfast, getting bored, having a cry with one’s spouse, going to the toilet, eating, getting bored at work, coming back, watching television, going to bed, getting up in the morning, and so on, day after day after day.  We feel that somehow there must be something else. So we go on a trip around the world – and we find that even on the other side of the world, we still have to get up, we still have to go to the toilet, we still have to eat, we still get happy and get bored with ourselves, we still get annoyed and depressed. We still get the same old “me” – whether it is here, on in California or in India or anywhere. So seeing the way things are is a very important realization because then we can actually work with life as it is, rather than expecting or dreaming about it.

Ajahn Sundara, Taking Refuge.

A day in the life

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Waking up in the morning, I vow with all beings
to listen to those whom I love, especially to things they don’t say.

Lighting a candle for Buddha, I vow with all beings
to honor your clear affirmation: “Forget yourself and you’re free.”

When I stroll around in the city, I vow with all beings
to notice how lichen and grasses never give up in despair

Watching a spider at work, I vow with all beings
to cherish the web of the universe: touch one point and everything moves.

When the racket can’t be avoided, I vow with all beings
to close my eyes for a moment and find my treasure right here.

With tropical forests in danger, I vow with all beings
to raise hell with the people responsible and slash my consumption of trees.

Watching gardeners label their plants , I vow with all beings
to practice the old horticulture and let plants identify me.

On reading the words of Thoreau, I vow with all beings
to cherish our home-grown sages, who discern the perennial Way.

Falling asleep at last I vow with all beings
to enjoy the dark and the silence and rest in the vast unknown.

Robert Aiken, Verses for Zen Buddhist Practice

Making space to pause today

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Choose a time when you are involved in a goal-oriented activity — reading, working on the computer, cleaning, eating — and explore pausing for a moment or two. Begin by discontinuing what you are doing, sitting comfortably and allowing your eyes to close. Take a few deep breaths and with each exhale let go of any worries or thoughts about what you are going to do next; let go of any tightness in the body.

Now, notice what you are experiencing as you inhabit the pause. What sensations are you aware of in your body? Do you feel anxious or restless as you try to step out of your mental stories? Do you feel pulled to resume your activity? Can you simply allow, for this moment, whatever is happening inside you?

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance