Category: Make the most of life

Acceptance and peace

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Change (4391669205).jpg

Pleasant conditions change into unpleasant ones, and unpleasant conditions eventually become pleasant. We should just keep this awareness of impermanence and be at peace with the way things are, not demanding that they be otherwise.  But most of all we should be at peace with ourselves – that is the big lesson to learn in life. It is really hard to be at peace with oneself. I find that most people have a lot of self-aversion. It is much better to be at peace with our own bodies and minds than anything else, and not demand that they be perfect, that we be perfect, or that everything be good. We can be at peace with the good and the bad.

Ajahn Sumedho

Photo Harald Hoyer

….And space in not knowing

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

There was this  friend who came to me  every afternoon about four o’clock, sat me down in a chair in the living room, took off my shoes and socks and massaged my feet. He hardly ever said anything. He was a Quaker elder. And yet out of his intuitive sense, from time to time would say a very brief word like, ‘I can feel your struggle today,’ or farther down the road, ‘I feel that you’re a little stronger at this moment, and I’m glad for that.’ But beyond that, he would say hardly anything. He would give no advice.  Somehow he found the one place in my body, namely the soles of my feet, where I could experience some sort of connection to another human being.

What he mainly did for me, of course, was to be willing to be present to me in my suffering. He just hung in with me in this very quiet, very simple, very tactile way. And it became for me a metaphor of the kind of community we need to extend to people who are suffering in this way, which is a community that is neither invasive of the mystery nor evasive of the suffering but is willing to hold people in a space, a sacred space of relationship, where somehow this person who is on the dark side of the moon can get a little confidence that they can come around to the other side.

Parker Palmer

Sunday Quote: Patience…

Karl Duffy1 Comment

seeds-sprouting-in-new-garden

Perhaps the earth can teach us

As when everything seems dead

And later proves to be alive

Pablo Neruda

Kindness towards ourselves…

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Mother-Child care.jpg

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment, and despair.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.

John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes

Photo: without you

Things happen in their own time

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:Reach for the sky - geograph.org.uk - 890060.jpg
We never know how high we are

till we are called to rise;

and then, if we are true to plan,

our statures touch the skies.

Emily Dickinson. We never know how high we are

Photo Steve F

Grateful seeing

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

springbuds

Grateful seeing is the ability to look first for what is good and working in our lives without minimizing or denying the hardships or challenges that are also present. Many traditional societies hold the perspective, or world-view, that what has been given to us ultimately ignites growth and strengthens us. Individuals who are viewed as seers are highly respected, honored, and valued for their gifts of insight, vision, and grateful seeing.  We, too, can learn to be seers — seers of the blessings, learnings, mercies, and protections that surround us everyday. In Spring, we open to the bounty and goodness that is present in our lives, any pockets of ingratitude that once seemed large in our imaginations become dwarfed — nearly nonexistent. It is important to remember that whatever we need to rectify in our lives is often small in proportion to all the benefits we have extended toward and received from others. All the good intentions, prayers, good deeds, and kind words we have offered others are still with us: they cannot be taken away, and this is a great source of encouragement.

Angeles Arrien