Tag: Awareness

When you get stuck behind a tractor

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:A traffic tail back behind a tractor by the former Coedana Rectory - geograph.org.uk - 1399270.jpg

It always happens when we are on the way to some appointment….trapped in our schedules, trapped in our cars…

Our old people noticed this from the beginning. They said that the white man lived in a world of cages, and that if we didn’t look out, they would make us live in cages too.

So we started noticing. Everything looked like cages. Your clothes fit like cages. Your houses looked like cages. You put your fences around your yards so they looked like cages. Everything was a cage. You turned the land into cages. Little squares. Then after you had all these cages you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn’t do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren’t happy and didn’t feel free.

You made all the cages, then you wondered why you didn’t feel free.

Kent Nerburn, Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

photo eric jones

Open to surprise

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Scenery of Shinji pond at Expo’70 Commemorative Park in Osaka.jpg

Gorgeous amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention:

Mangoes, Grandchildren, Bach, ponds…

This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible.

If you say, “Well, that’s pretty much what I thought I’d see,” you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here.

[…] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

photo: laitche

Trust

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Soft shades of autumn - geograph.org.uk - 1585929.jpg

Sometimes it is hard to see what what is really going on in our lives or where they are leading to. Underneath, something is happening. We just have to be patient for it to emerge.

If you break open the cherry tree

Where are the flowers?

But in the Springtime

see how they bloom!

Ikkyu, 1394 – 1481 Japanese Zen monk and poet

 

Sunday Quote: Fixed outcomes

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Fall leaves in Frick Park 01.jpg

No Appointment

No Disappointment

Swami Satchidananda, Indian religious teacher, 1914 – 2002

photo Cbaile19

Why each moment this day is precious

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:FL autumn leaves.jpg

Dew evaporates
And all our world is dew…so dear,
So fresh, so fleeting.

Issa, 1763 – 1828, On the death of his child

Beneath

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:2016-07-27 Seagull in Zandvoort aan Zee (02) (freddy2001).jpg

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior.

You are beneath the thinker.

You are the stillness beneath the mental noise.

You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

Eckhart Tolle

photo freddy2001