Tag: Awareness

No need to go to China

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Do we need to make a special effort to enjoy the beauty of the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it. Each second, each minute of our life can be like this. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, the presence of each other, even the sensation of our breathing. We don’t need to go to China to enjoy the blue sky. We don’t have to travel into the future to enjoy our breathing. We can be in touch with these things right now. 

Thich Nhat Hanh

Giving thought too much reality

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

You say that you are troubled
by your own thoughts. Listen,
even the moth casts a shadow
when it flies before the sun.
Do you think the sun is troubled,
or the ground, or the moth,
for that matter? No, what is
troubled is the shadow thinking
it’s the moth that has fallen
to the ground, where the sun
will never shine again.

Richard Schiffman, Environmental journalist and poet,  Moth Koan (excerpt)

Gently guide yourself

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If you gently help yourself back to the present moment,

you see how life keep stumbling along

and how you may actually find your way through another ordinary or impossible day

Annie Lamott

How to develop the heart

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

You shouldn’t chase after the past
or place expectations on the future.
What is past is left behind.
The future is as yet unreached.
Whatever quality is present
you clearly see, right there,
right there. 
Not taken in; unshaken. 
That’s how you develop the heart.

Bhaddekaratta Sutta

Making Space

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The life that we have in our mind, the life that is a reflection of our planning, the life that has been constructed out of bits and pieces in our environment — external conditioning, things we have observed in other people, things that influential people have told us — is actually not who we are. Life emerges out of the silence of our inner being. When I was in graduate school I worked with a Jungian analyst, June Singer. She used to say, “Work expands to fill all of the available space.” The problem is not the amount of things you have in your life, it’s the attitude. It’s your fear of space.

Reginald Ray, Busyness is laziness

Each thing today

Karl Duffy1 Comment

You may be capable of great things,

but life consists of small things

Deng Ming-Dao, Chinese author of 365 Tao