A good way to measure

Karl Duffy3 Comments

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I read in Brand’s “Popular Antiquities” that “Bishop Stillingfleet observes, that among the peoples of the northern nations, the Feast of the New Year was observed with more than ordinary jollity: thence, as Olaus Wormius and Scheffer observe, they reckoned their age by so many Iolas.” (Iola: to make merry) So may we measure our lives by our joys.

We have lived, not in proportion to the number of years that we have spent on the earth,

but in proportion as we have enjoyed

Henry David Thoreau, Journals (1860)

Sunday Quote: Being true to oneself

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Bee and Flower (15677562528).jpg

The flower doesn’t dream of the bee

It blossoms and the bee comes

Mark Nepo

photo incidencematrix

No stories, just enjoy

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File:Gear toy and young girl.jpg

It is no easy matter to stop short at just seeing.

Mahasi Sayadaw.

photo blue plover

Needs no comment

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Awareness is the centre of what we call ‘mind’, but normally of course, the mind is awareness plus regret, or longing, or analysis, or sidetrack and rumbling trains of thought moving forward, backwards – or anywhere except the simply open present. So it takes training, but with guidance and effort, the meditator centres on awareness as the feature of the mind that is constant, irreducible and needs no comment. Consequently, as awareness releases from these associated activities, it is revealed in its depth and warm beauty. It’s a given treasure.

Ajahn Sucitto, Mind out of Time

phto Laitche

Born anew every morning

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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And I have dreamed
of the morning coming in
like a bird through the window
not burdened by a thought

the light a singing

as I had hoped

Wendall Berry, The Design of the House

photo LiAnna Davis

The light in the darkness

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 File:Tender Dawn Sunlight and Leaves (3963128566).jpg

One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The Infinite Incandescence
That has cast my brilliant image!
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

Hafiz

photo D Sharon Pruitt