Tag: Awareness

Beautiful things

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Frosted window, nature's version of net curtains - geograph.org.uk - 1652846.jpg

We live our long, worn days in the shadows, in what often feels like barren, cold winter, so unaware of the miracles that are being created in our spirits. It takes the sudden daylight, some unexpected surprise of life, to cause our gaze to look upon a simple, stunning growth that has happened quietly inside us. Like frost designs on a winter window, they bring us beyond life’s fragmentation and remind us that we are not nearly as lost as we thought we were, that all the time we thought we were dead inside, beautiful things were being born in us

Joyce Rupp, Praying our Goodbyes

photo pauline eccles

How not to get swept away in reactions

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File:Blue in green.JPG

Mindfulness practice is not just paying attention, but involves a certain evaluation. In reality this involves paying attention to whatever enters through the senses and seeing what arises and passes away in each moment. One of the reasons we do this is to ensure that what arises is held lightly, and does not trigger off unskilful patterns of thinking based on our history and our emotional schemas. For example, if we see a certain reaction on a persons face it can easily trigger memories of the same reaction  in the past and that lead to us feeling less appreciated or judged. The simple contact today can lead to a proliferation of thoughts from the past. Thus we are mindful of each thing as a separate moment, without turning it into a story about how good or bad our lives are.

A person who has clarified their real state sees only

each thing,

each thing,

each thing,

and lets go of understanding an underlying nature for each thing.

Dogen, Uji

photo maitreya maitreyen

Notice the little things today

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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We can spend a lot of time each day as if in a trance, missing each moment as we lean into the next.  One way to counteract this,  and enjoy your life more,  is to let yourself notice the little things today with fresh eyes; simple things, like a cup of coffee, a smile from a colleague, the dew on the grass. In this way we pause and refresh the heart.

In the dew of little things

the heart finds its morning

and is refreshed.

Kahlil Gibran

Remembering we are sustained

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File:Mont Blanc Massif.jpg
A beautiful poem by Denise Levertov, putting the journey of our life and its cares and distractions into perspective
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
Denise Levertov, Primary Wonder.  US poet, 1923 – 1997.
photo of the Mont Blanc Massif

Take time

Karl Duffy1 Comment

spring crocii

If we can be quieter, more in the moment with what is actually happening, a world of perception opens up for us based on where we are, not on where we one day hope to be. “Nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small,” said artist Georgia O’Keeffe. “We haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” If we learn to take a little more time and be more fully aware of just where we are, we might see many new flowers and have many more friends.

Sharon Salzberg, The Power of Patience

photo from catriona.net

Noticing the journey

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Beautiful mountain path 1 - geograph.org.uk - 1244399.jpg

Every day is a journey,

and the journey itself is home.

Matsuo Bashô,  Oku no Hosomichi (1689).

photo Graham Cole