The modern disease

Karl Duffy11 Comments

File:Gfp-office-desk-area.jpg

In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, “Kayf haal-ik?” or, in Persian, “Haal-e shomaa chetoreh?” How is your haal? What is this “haal” that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, “How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?” When I ask, “How are you?” that is really what I want to know.

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list.

Omid Safi, The Disease of Being Busy

Posted in Uncategorized

At its own pace

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Running-on-treadmills-motion-blur.jpg

The meaning of life is just to be alive.

It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.

And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves

Alan Watts, The Culture of Counter-Culture

photo brandon wiggins

Sunday Quote: Perspective

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Blue and purple flowers against unfocused purple flowers.jpg

Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture.

You never realize that all you needed was to change perspective.

Miguel Syjuco, Illustrado, 2008 Man Asian Literary Prizewinner

Not sorting things into good and bad

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Defense.gov photo essay 120811-M-FR139-002.jpg

Each day we can encounter setbacks or difficulties, or simply things may happen which we did not expect. And sometimes they can reveal a lot,  if they stir up our own mixture of unresolved issues linked to our past.  Rather than regarding them as diversions or obstacles on the path, we are encouraged to see them as where we are called to go. The “bad” situation becomes something to be skillfully worked with:

A person who falls to the ground gets back up by using that ground.

To try to get up without relying on that ground would be impossible.

Chinul, 1158–1210,

Zen Master considered to be the most significant influence on the formation of Korean Zen

An open being

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

boat dunmore

The moment you start clinging to things, you have missed the target — you have missed. Because things are not the target, you, your innermost being, is the target — not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you; not much money, but a rich you; not many things, but an open being, available to millions of things.

Osho

photo taken in Dunmore West, Co Waterford.

More about tasting

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Blueberry muffins, whole and partial.jpg

There is a fundamental paradox here.  The less we are attached to life, the more alive we can become.  The less we have preferences about life, the more deeply we can experience and participate in life.  This is not to say that I don’t prefer raisin toast to blueberry muffins.  It is to say that I don’t prefer raisin toast so much that I am unwilling to get out of bed unless I can have raisin toast, or that the absence of raisin toast ruins the whole day.  Embracing life may be more about tasting than it is about either raisin toast or blueberry muffins.  More about trusting one’s ability to take joy in the newness of the day and what it may bring.  More about adventure than having your own way.

Rachel Naomi Remen, Embracing Life

photo SKopp