Tag: Awareness

Staying fluid 1: Fear and hurt mean we put labels on things

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. Thomas Merton

It is a good practice to keep the heart soft and the stories we tell ourselves fluid, but it is not always easy. We can get locked into the hurt of a certain moment and find it hard to move beyond that. It becomes attached to a particular story. Our practice encourages us to keep moving to the present, and not allow a past event limit how we enjoy life. Sometimes we will never get perfect explanations, or full understanding. We still have a choice: will we stay stuck in a moment we can’t get out of or accepting that it happened, open to the way the present moment actually is, as one full of new and future possibilities.

Someone is walking toward us — suddenly we freeze. Not only do we freeze ourselves, but we also freeze the space in which the person is walking toward us. We call him “friend” who is walking through this space or “enemy.” Thus the person is automatically walking through a frozen situation of fixed ideas — “this is that” or “this is not that.” This is what is called “wrong view.” It is a conceptualized view which is imperfect because we do not see the situation as it is.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Deepening our appreciation of this day

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When we know how to listen deeply and how to breathe deeply in mindfulness

everything becomes clear and deep

Thich Nhat Hahn

When your day is blue, or grey, look for red

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The snow returned briefly yesterday, and today there is a bitter north wind.  When times are grey or cold, or if our mood is blue (as this week is purported to be) we need to consciously notice the moments of colour and warmth in our lives, explicitly savouring them a little longer. We have to let positive facts become positive experiences. Just as   Mary Oliver does when she pays attention to the red bird in this poem. What were  or are the moments of colour in your day today that you can be grateful for? Who or what brought warmth? Allow yourself  to feel good if you achieve something  however small,  if someone smiles or if you notice a good quality in yourself. As studies have shown, the more you take in the good in little details, the more your brain tilts towards the positive in an overall sense.

Still, for whatever reason —
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,

or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens —
I am glad

that red bird comes all winter,
firing up the landscape
as nothing else can do.

Work with your day as it is

Karl Duffy1 Comment

To practice we must see exactly where we are. Of course we can always imagine perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone else should behave. But it’s not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.

Ajahn Sumedho

Deepening your Practice 1: Let things be

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool.  All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange & wonderful things come and go, but you will be still.

Ajahn Chah

Deepening your Practice 2:Become an observer

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Sit where it is quiet and close your eyes: the natural inclination to make contact will bring up mental images characterized by feelings. These will most likely be taken as aspects of yourself and you’ll find various reactions occurring and you will get busy,  sitting still. However, the practice of sitting quietly with your eyes closed in meditation is useful in that, with steady attention, you can realize that all of this mental stuff is something that can be watched, and that it is therefore a series of objects – not the subject, the self. You only experience contact because of feelings and perceiving something. And since what is felt or perceived must always be an object, how can you ever contact a true subject, or self? This understanding in itself takes some of the drama out of the show, and the mind stops feeding on contact, it steps back into balance and quiets down.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth