Category: Make the most of life

Clouds and rain

Karl Duffy2 Comments

clouds sun jura

You must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you

Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

A wise path

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Stepping stones on the Allt Smoo, by Durness - geograph.org.uk - 922020.jpg

Do your work, then step back

The only path to serenity

Lao Tzu

photo AlastairG

Where we often neglect

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File:Loving hand.JPG

And God said, Love your enemy,

and  I obeyed Him

and loved myself.

Kahlil Gibran

Ideas of perfection

Karl Duffy5 Comments

File:Heavenly Dews Grace Broken Leaf Imperfect Life.JPG

When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves – from other people, relationships, or material goods – or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection.

Mark Epstein, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart

photo wingchi poon

Able to hold

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Horses next to Brundon Lane - geograph.org.uk - 785691.jpg

In the Buddhist tradition the ability to be happy is often translated into English as ‘equanimity,’

roughly meaning to be equal to things,

to be large enough for the drama in which we find ourselves.

David Whyte, The Three Marriages

photo oxyman

How to train the mind

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Happy man in a rainy day.jpg

Consider all phenomena to be dreams.
Don’t be swayed by outer circumstances.
Be grateful to everyone.
Don’t brood over the faults of others.
Explore the nature of unborn awareness.
At all times simply rely on a joyful mind.
Don’t expect a standing ovation

Atiśa, 980 – 1054, Seven Points for Training the Mind and Heart

photo Ed Yourdon