Being joyful in an uncertain world

Karl Duffy4 Comments

The last sentence in this quote has become quite famous as a way of navigating the inevitable ups and downs of this life:

All life is sorrowful; there is however an escape from sorrow; the escape is nirvana – which is a state of mind or consciousness, not a place somewhere, like heaven. It is right here, in the midst of the turmoil of life. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out of that. Voluntary action out of this center is the action of the bodhisattvas – joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. 

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Don’t rush to interpret what is going on

Karl Duffy4 Comments

We like to live in our heads – our thinking minds – and we presume that this gives us the best information about the world, However, our refuge should be in moment-to-moment direct sensing of experience. We are patient, not  rushing to interpret or make judgments as to how our life is going: 

The instruction and teaching of the actual body is the harbour and the weir.

This is the most important thing in the world.

It is beyond explanation

We just accept it with respect and gratitude

Dogen

 

We are not our thoughts

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A way that can be articulated is not a permanent Way,

and names that can be designated are not permanent labels.

Wen Tzu, Daoist text attributed to follower of Lao Tzu, pre 55 BC

The image of self we carry around

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In order to change our mode of action,

we must change the image of ourselves that we carry within us.

Moshe Feldenkreis

Sunday Quote: A life with song

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Crested lark singing.jpg

This morning is International Dawn Chorus Day, a worldwide celebration of music in nature.

The birders I encountered in books and in the world shared little except this simple secret:

if you listen to birds, every day will have a song in it.

Kyo McLear, Bird Art Life: A Year of Observation

photo Artemy Voikhansky

With thanks to David Kanigan at Live and Learn

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…and make us stronger

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File:Croagh patrick path.jpg

See how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.

Jane Hirshfield,  For What Binds Us 

photo Kanchelskis