Tag: balance

At ease with our fundamental nature

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A deeper feeling – a sense of groundlessness or loneliness –  is normal in humans,  and part of meditation practice is learning to sit with this. Advent, when a lot of running around is encouraged,  is a good time to notice the energies connected with this.

The restlessness of our inner abyss. Pope Francis, Church of the Gesù, Jan 2014

As I look out at the world, I see that a lot of us are just running around in circles pretending that there’s ground where there actually isn’t any ground. And that somehow, if we could learn to not be afraid of groundlessness, not be afraid of insecurity and uncertainty, it would be calling on an inner strength that would allow us to be open and free and loving and compassionate in any situation. But as long as we keep trying to scramble to get ground under our feet and avoid this uneasy feeling of groundlessness and insecurity and uncertainty and ambiguity and paradox, any of that, then the wars will continue.  It’s like the matrix of creative potential. The matrix of the spiritual life. It’s like if we could rest there, which I suppose would be the description of enlightenment or the mystic, you know. Rest in that place, and is completely happy. 

Pema Chodron, Interview with Bill Moyers, Faith and Reason, 2006

In the body

Karl Duffy2 Comments

 

 Can we stop judging our whole life just because of a disturbing feeling in the body?

All of our reactions to people, to situations, to thoughts in our mind

– are actually reactions to the kind of sensations that are arising in our body.

Tara Brach

The paradox of human life

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings.

If we refuse to hold them in hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.   

Parker Palmer

Seasons are natural

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As yesterday’s post reminded us, things are always changing in life, just as nature has its seasons:

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep in your heart the miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Kahil Gibran The Prophet

Sunday Quote: Cold and warmth

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Similar to Mary Oliver’s quote last Sunday: a walk today shows that life’s experience is a mixture –  cold frost and warm colour. Sheep and goats, as today’s Gospel parable reminds us.

A world of grief and pain, 
Flowers bloom
Even then.

Issa, 1763 –  1828, Japanese Buddhist poet.

Some of his poems reflect his attempts to come to terms with the premature passing of his children.

Only half a circle

Karl Duffy3 Comments

 

The creator of the universe loves circles: time and space are circles, the day is a circle, the year is a circle, the earth is a circle.

But when creating and fashioning the human heart, the creator only created a half-circle, so that there is something ontologically unfinished in human nature.

The beautiful irony is that even though we’re housed in separate bodies there is a profound hidden tissue of absolute connection between us. The Celtic tradition sensed that no one lives for herself alone. Your call to discover who you are and to bring your soul into birth is also a great act of creativity toward everyone else.

John O’Donohue, The Presence of Compassion