Tag: balance

In 2023, be like a cat

Karl Duffy2 Comments

When a cat falls out of a tree, it let’s go of itself. The cat becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. But if a cat were about to fall out of a tree, and suddenly make up its mind that it didnt want to fall, it would become tense and rigid, and would be just a bag of broken bones upon landing.

It is the philosophy of the Tao that…the moment we were born we were kicked off a precipice and we are falling, and there is nothing that can stop it.

So instead of living in a state of chronic tension and clinging to all sorts of things that are actually falling with us because the whole world is impermanent, be like a cat.

Alan Watts, What is Tao?

Sunday Quote: new and unique

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Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe

— a moment that never was before and never will be again.


Pablo Casals quoted in Diane Loomans, Full Esteem Ahead

Now the dancing begins

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The mind is constantly trying to figure out
what page it’s on in the story of itself.


Close the book. Burn the bookmark. End of story.


Now the dancing begins.

Ikko Narasaki Roshi, Zen Buddhist monk, died 1996.

Leaving behind

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Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said..
A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made..
Or a garden planted….
It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as
you change something from the way it was before you touched it
into something that’s like you
after you take your hands away..
The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said..
The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all….the gardener will be there a lifetime.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The simple things

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I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness:

a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea.

Nothing else.

Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

We can begin now

Karl Duffy3 Comments

We may need to bid farewell to parts of ourselves rooted in safety but not in truth.

In the end we will only carry the reflection, “did I love well”. This will be the residue that either gladdens or aches our heart. As this year comes to an end, let us honor ourselves and those we love by letting go. We can bring fresh eyes to this moment and birth that which enlivens us. As for loving well, we can begin now. We can fly with the angels as we take ourselves lightly.

Ram Dass