Tag: balance

Enough light

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?” There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Donne–nous aujourd‘hui notre pain de ce jour

French translation Matthew 6:11

photo Sasikanth balachandran

Endings

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Cygnes et cygneaux.jpg

Everything is meant to be let go of.

Meister Eckhart

A little more from Rilke, because sometimes he says it best.  Changes of direction and endings are an inevitable part of our lives, but can be difficult especially if we do not choose them.  Our instinct is to look for certainty, for solid ground, when in actual fact, the deep reality which we come to accept is that nothing is really lasting or solid.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

Rilke

What’s wrong with maybe

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs;
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway.
What’s wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.

Mary Oliver, The World I live in

Inspired by s and with thanks to a-poem-a-day-project.blogspot.ie

photo robinhood22

Dropping the filter

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Mount Lushan - fog.JPG

A similar idea to yesterday’s, this time from the Eastern traditions, to guide us as we “wander” through this day. What we think we know can sometimes get in the way, or close us down, to what is happening before us:

Jizo asked Hogen, “Where are you going?”

“I just wander aimlessly” replied Hogen.

“What is the nature of your wandering,” asked Jizo.

“I don’t know,” replied Hogen.

“Not knowing is the most intimate,” replied Jizo.

And at this Hogen experienced great enlightenment.

Zen Story

One Zen story states, “Not knowing is most intimate.” I understand this to mean that what is most essential is not understood through the filter of our judgments, past knowledge, or memories. When not-knowing helps these to drop away, the result can be a greater immediacy – what some might call being intimate. This practice of beginner’s mind is to cultivate an ability to meet life without preconceived ideas, interpretations, or judgments.

Gil Fronsdal

photo: Pfctdayelise

Not knowing

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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The great Meister Eckhart knew that life was much greater than what he could grasp or make sense of. He reminds us that holding a space for what we do not know is just as important as our ideas and concepts about what is happening. What do we really know about ourselves, our experience, our world?:

“I ask God to rid me of God,” Meister Eckhart says.

The God, who is known and familiar, is far too small for him.

Dorothee Sölle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

photo sayhey1111

Many directions

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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When we live superficially, we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions –  we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives. “Why spend your money on what is not food and your earnings on what fails to satisfy?” (Isaiah 55)

Thomas Merton, Love and Living

photo Highways agency