Category: Make the most of life

Each day has its challenges and difficulties

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DSCN0245The meditation orientation is not about fixing pain or making it better. It’s about looking deeply into the nature of pain — making use of it in certain ways that might allow us to grow. In that growing, things will change, and we have the potential to make choices that will move us toward greater wisdom and compassion, including self-compassion, and thus toward freedom from suffering.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, At Home in our Bodies.

We become our choices

Karl DuffyLeave a comment
You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief, the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
Clay that tastes of care or carelessness, clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.
 
Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live, each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table.
There are honeys so bitter no one would willingly choose to take them.
The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity,
honey of cruelty, fear.
 
This rebus – slip and stubbornness, bottom of river, my own consumed life –
when will I learn to read it
plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire?
Not to understand it, only to see.
 
As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.
Each yes, each no continues, this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup.
 
The ladder leans into its darkness.
The anvil leans into its silence.
The cup sits empty.
 
How can I enter this question the clay has asked?
Jane Hirshfield,  Given Sugar, Given Salt
Image taken from http://www.videojug.com

Do less and less

Karl Duffy5 Comments
P1000426A lovely quote from the Ox and Window by the 17th century Zen master Hakuin Ekaku, which came to me through Zen teacher David Rynick’s Blog. It has a  delightful message, contrary to the rushing, achievement focus of most early January messages:
This year, I am determined to be more unproductive.  My goal is to do less and less – to move slower and slower until everything stops.  I and the whole world will come to a sweet and silent stillness.  And in this stillness, a great shout of joy will arise.  We will all be free – free from the advice of ancient ages, free from the whining voices, free from the incessant objections of the responsible ones. In this new world, it will be abundantly clear that the bare branches of the winter trees are our teachers.  In their daily dance of moving here and there, we will see once again the true meaning of our life.  In the wind song of their being, we will hear God’s unmistakable voice.  We will follow what appears before us – what had once been difficult will now unfold with ease.

Exploring new areas

Karl Duffy1 Comment

thresholdIn Celtic folk tales a curse that could happen to a person was to get stuck in a field and not be able to get back out of it, to be stuck in that place for ever. It was seen as a definite curse to be unable to venture or to change. We all know this experience in some small way; we all get ourselves stuck in routines and habits that act like shackles. We all refuse to open our eyes to the vision that is before us; too often we select what we hear and what we respond to. The open gate is the opposite of this. It is the invitation to adventure and to grow, the call to be among the living and vital elements of the world. The open gate is the call to explore new areas of yourself and the world around you. It is a challenge to come and discover that the world and ourselves are filled with mystery …. The open gate is the choice that  is always … before us.  It is a sign of the opportunity that is ours.

David Adam, The Open Gate

Training the mind

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

30481195_e1fd7690bbListening to your own heart is really very interesting. This untrained heart races around following its own habits. It jumps about excitedly, randomly, because it has never been trained. Train your heart!…Meditation is about the heart; it’s about developing the heart or mind, about developing your own heart. This is very, very important.

Ajahn Chah, Food for the Heart

Taking it gently this week

Karl Duffy3 Comments

buttercup 55The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness. The more we do it, the stronger these qualities become. How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go. We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal.

Pema Chodron