Tag: Awareness

Deepening our trust in ourselves

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

stairs

Genuine faith is born of the ability to trust in what is most fundamentally true within ourselves. Circumstance will change, and all manner of things pleasant and unpleasant will arise and fall away; sometimes our lives will be touched with joy, and at other times we will be given tremendous pain and sorrow. Many times we will be afraid. But the object of faith is not to eliminate difficult circumstances, nor is faith about trusting in a God who will rescue us from hurt or who – if only believe strongly enough – will make everything better. The real question of faith is when pain and loss inevitably come our way, do we withdraw in fear that we will be destroyed, or do we deepen our trust in our innate capacity to endure them?

Wayne Muller

The mind as an empty room

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

sun windowAn image that is often given to help us develop the right understanding of practice is that of a vast empty room with an open window, through which a shaft of light is passing. In the shaft of light we can see specks of dust which, although floating everywhere in the empty space, are highlighted in the light. The shaft of light is the light of attention. The vast empty space is the mind. The specks of dust are the experiences of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and mental impressions. The dust floats through empty space and if there’s right awareness, right mindfulness, we see it in perspective.

Ajahn Mumindo, Unexpected Freedom

Mysteries

Karl Duffy1 Comment

46 Sunlit bloomTruly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver, Evidence.

Good Friday: Between two notes

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Tree on Green Hills: Tiny tree on green hills of Hammar, Skåne, Sweden.My life is not this steeply sloping hour,
in which you see me hurrying.
Much stands behind me: I stand before it like a tree:
But I am only one of many mouths
and at that, the one that will be still the soonest.
I am the rest between two notes,
which are somehow always in discord
because death’s note wants to climb over –
but in the dark interval, reconciled,
They stay here trembling.

And the song goes on, beautiful.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Calm as a lake

Karl Duffy1 Comment

lake wales

Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface, and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy

Jon Kabat Zinn

Working with things as they are

Karl Duffy2 Comments

These are the things we can contemplate. We can’t control what arises in the mind, but we can reflect on what we are feeling and learn from it rather than simply being caught helplessly in our impulses and habits. Even though there is a lot in life that we can’t change, we can change our attitude towards it. That’s what so much of meditation is really about—changing our attitude from a self-centered, “get rid of this or get more of that” to one of welcoming life as it is. Welcoming the opportunity to eat food that we don’t like. Welcoming wearing three robes on a hot morning. Welcoming discomfort, feeling fed up, wanting to run away. This way of welcoming life reflects a deeper understanding. Life is like this. Sometimes it’s very nice, sometimes it’s horrible, and much of the time it’s neither one way nor the other. Life is like this.

Ajahn Sumedho