Tag: Awareness

Each moment is sacred

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There is no less holiness at this time — as you are reading this — than there was the day the Red Sea parted . . . There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha’s bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said ‘Maid, arise’ to the centurion’s daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree.

Anne DIlliard, For the Time Being

…and taking the first step.

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Start with the ground you know,
the pale ground beneath your feet,
your own way of starting
the conversation.

Start with your own question,
give up on other people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something simple.

To find another’s voice,
follow your own voice,
wait until that voice
becomes a  private ear
listening to another.

Start right now,  take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in, don’t mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first thing
close in, the step
you don’t want to take.

David Whyte, Start Close in

Sunday Quote: Letting go of our stories…

Karl Duffy3 Comments

[Penguin]

When we become fixed in our perceptions,

we lose our ability to fly

Yongey Mingpur Rinpoche

When we become a mood

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Normally, as a negative mood arises, it catches hold and infects the whole mind – we become that mood – with its characteristic form. This is the big weakness of the undeveloped mind – it makes how I feel into who I am. There’s a grasp, a contraction, and we get pushed into the story, get mesmerized by it and rehash it time and time again.

Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma

Noticing our Wandering Mind

Karl Duffy3 Comments

Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed, “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation… Our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the nonpresent. A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness. In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged…. [So] ..The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.

Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind”, Science Magazine

Addicted to thinking

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Most of the time we are not aware of being alive. We are too busy living. Our daily dramas, plans and desires fill our minds: we are addicted storytellers (both waking and sleeping) constantly rehearsing scripts and scenarios that we wish to arise or that may arise. The more mental energy we give our stories, the faster they spin and the more intense the experience becomes. It is powerfully addictive and feeds on itself. It is the ultimate drug and like any drug, increasing amounts are needed to maintain the intensity. Should the intensity drop for any length of time, we believe that something has gone wrong…If we run out of fantasies to pursue, we say that life has become meaningless.

Simon Small, From the Bottom of the Pool