Tag: Awareness

Live one thing fully

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Meditation is not just a simple technique for stabilizing the mind; it is also the discovery of how to engage fully, even while sitting still. In the modern culture of speed we seem to not do anything fully. We are half watching television and half using the computer; we are driving while talking on the phone; we have a hard time having even one conversation; when we sit down to eat we are reading a newspaper and watching television and even when we are watching television we are flipping through the channels. This quality of life gives us a superficial feeling: we never experience anything fully. We engage in these activities in order to live a full life, but being speedy and distracted, we have never discovered what full means

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Running with the Mind of Meditation

How we lose our way

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the compass points that would show us where to go, we bypass the nourishment that would give us succor. We miss the quiet that would give us wisdom. We miss the joy and love born of effortless delight. Poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

Wayne Muller, Sabbath

Simple awareness, not fixing, is the key

Karl Duffy2 Comments

The crumbling of the false self occurs through awareness of its manifestations, not through the substitution of some underlying “truer” personality. The ability to become aware of self- representations without creating new ones is, psychologically speaking, a great relief. It does not mean that we drop the everyday experience of ourselves as unique and, in some way, ongoing individuals, but it does mean that whenever we find ourselves entering narcissistic territory, we can recognize the terrain without searching immediately for an alternative.

Mark Epstein, Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

Take time

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The theology of progress forces us to act before we are ready. We speak before we know what to say. We respond before we feel the truth of what we know. In the process, we inadvertently create suffering, heaping imprecision upon inaccuracy, until we are all buried under a mountain of misperception. But Sabbath says, Be still. Stop. There’s no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished. Take time to rest, and eat, and drink and be refreshed. And in the gentle rhythm of that refreshment, listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks the quiet truth of what is needed. 

Wayne Muller, Sabbath

Not fighting with what is happening

Karl Duffy3 Comments

Being silent for me doesn’t require being in a quiet place and it doesn’t mean not saying words. It means, “receiving in a balanced, noncombative way what is happening.” With or without words, the hope of my heart is that it will be able to relax and acknowledge the truth of my situation with compassion.

Sylvia Boorstein, That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist

Trust in the goodness underneath

Karl Duffy2 Comments

When we get anxious and insecure is we speed up. We get busy: we get addicted to email, we get addicted to being online, we get addicted to food and drugs, we get addicted to talking to other people – not just to communicate but just to keep busy.  The only way that you’ll actually wake up and have some freedom is if you have the capacity and courage to stay with the vulnerability and the discomfort.  Meditation helps us to pay attention so that we can directly realize and trust the goodness that’s there. We actually begin to recognize that who we are is awareness, who we are is love, and our sense of identity shifts in such a fundamental way that it actually challenges the small-self story.

Tara Brach,  Just say Yes to the Moment