Category: Be fully present

Invisible kindness

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Every two weeks,  or so,  I facilitate a Support Group for the Hospice volunteers, listening as they share their experiences of being with people towards the end of their life. Each time I am struck by the kind presence which they offer to those who are ill.  After the last meeting it struck me again how being generous requires an ongoing leap of faith, as we often cannot see the effects of our presence or our words. It maybe these  invisible kindnesses, which we offer quietly and without knowing their effect,  are the greatest things we can do in our lives.

In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically. It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common story. Whether the ‘scarce resource’ is money or love or power or words, the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around.

Parker Palmer

The ground of our practice

Karl Duffy4 Comments

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape

Relaxing with your body and mind

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When you don’t punish or condemn yourself, when you relax more and appreciate your body and mind, you begin to contact the fundamental notion of basic goodness in yourself. So it is extremely important to be willing to open yourself to yourself. Developing tenderness toward yourself allows you to see both your problems and your potential accurately. You don’t feel that you have to ignore your problems or exaggerate your potential. That kind of gentleness toward yourself and appreciation of yourself is very necessary. It provides the ground for helping yourself and others

Chögyam Trungpa, The Sanity We Are Born With

Becoming a silent watcher.

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Be present as the watcher of your mind  –  of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations.  Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react.  Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future.  Don’t judge or analyze what you observe.  Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction.  Don’t make a personal problem out of them.  You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.

Eckhart Tolle

Home

Karl Duffy1 Comment

When you rest in God, you just go home to yourself like the wave on the water. If the wave continues to search, she will never find the water. The only way to find the water is to go home to herself. When she realizes that she is water, she has peace. She practices resting in God in the here and the now. Although she continues to rise and fall, she is peaceful. We can practice Love as the ground of our being: Home.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Not knowing is not a problem

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We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may even see the unknown as an insult to our competence, a personal failing. Seen this way, the unknown becomes a challenge to action. But Mystery does not require action; Mystery requires our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives.

 Rachel Naomi Remen,  My Grandfather’s Blessings