With a child’s eyes

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child

The ability to drop into the present is sometimes referred to as child-mind, because children, little ones, look at things that openly, from that degree of relaxation, from that degree of nowness. Can you remember what it was like as a child, sitting under a bush and how it smelled, going to grandmothers and how her house or garden smelled, and how her perfume smelled? Think of a child going to a museum and not having a clue that what they are seeing is a Picasso or a Renoir. Children just look with this kind of open awareness. 

Pema Chodron,  How to Meditate

….Time for others

Karl Duffy3 Comments

AnamChara : Soul Friendship

Being able to focus on the other person rather than the text you just received has become the new fundamental requirement for having a relationship with that person. If you go to a restaurant these days, for instance, you see people sitting together, at the same table, staring at their video screens, their phone, their iPad, or whatever it may be — and not talking to each other. That’s become the new norm. And what it means is that the connection is being damaged to some extent — threatened by the fact that we’re together, but we’re not together. We’re alone together.

Daniel Goldman, Is Attention the Secret to Emotional Intelligence

Time for ourselves….

Karl Duffy1 Comment

tea22

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves

–  slowly, evenly –

without rushing toward the future

Thich Nhat Hahn

Waking up

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

gift1

All of us know how difficult it is for us to be inside the present moment, to not be asleep to the real riches inside our own lives. The distractions and worries of daily life tend to so consume us that we habitually take for granted what’s most precious to us, our health, the miracle of our senses, the love and friendships that surround us, and the gift of life itself. We go through our daily lives not only with a lack of reflectiveness and lack of gratitude but with a habitual touch of resentment as well, a chronic, grey depression, Robert Moore calls it. We are very much asleep, both to God and to our own lives.

Ron Rolheiser

Really seeing

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closed flower

In a way, nobody sees a flower, really,

it is so small, we haven’t the time

— and to see takes time,

like to have a friend takes time.

Georgia O’Keefe

Weakness

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Baby's hand.JPG

It’s not possible to be afraid of a baby.  The way she looks at us, her smile, her eyes, even her fragility, her trust and her innocence seem to touch even the most profound places in the hearts of us adults. The child is able to penetrate the walls that we have constructed around our hearts to defend ourselves, to protect ourselves, to prove that we are independent, competent, and strong. A child reveals the child who is hidden inside each of us, the child whom we have buried behind these impenetrable walls of protection, of strength, and of our need to win. Within our societies based on rivalry, we are often afraid to show our weakness. Admitting weakness can be dangerous since it might lead to rejection. Instead we feel that we need to show our competence, our capability, our power, our knowledge. If not, we risk begin wounded, rejected, isolated, and scorned. The weakness of the child – especially of a very young child – does the opposite: it attracts us and makes  us smile; it leads us to tenderness and communion. It awakens kindness. …….awakened by something outside of me, and yet it is what is deepest within me. It is “me.  All of us, at the deepest level of our being, are wounded children who are searching for love, for tenderness.

Jean Vanier, Christmas Letter, 2011

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