Tag: balance

What glorious things today

Karl Duffy4 Comments

File:Red geranium 3.jpeg

Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life: a frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, a loss of a job or a limb or a loved one, a graduation, bringing a new baby home: it’s impossible to think at first how this all will be possible. Eventually, what moves it all forward is the subterranean ebb and flow of being alive among the living.

In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again.

Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again

Barbara Kingsolver  High Tide in Tucson

Why we frequently get it wrong

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Qutub Minar unfinished.jpg

As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. To the degree that we’ve been avoiding uncertainty, we’re naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms — withdrawal from always thinking that there’s a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it.

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

photo sajid213

Step out of the current

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shop-windows

In the West many of us  live in physical comfort, yet because we are continually being presented with more refined commodities or changing standards by which to measure ourselves, there’s not much contentment. And there are social and group pressures…. People can become depressed  if their bodies don’t match up to the current standards of beauty, or if their personality is not smart enough, cynical enough, seedy enough – whatever the fashion is. … So there can be a nervous feeling of inadequacy and insecurity which deprives us of a sense of trust in our innate worth as a human being. So because of just this, it’s important that we sense and define ourselves as ‘being’ apart from those currents, if only to get onto some firmer ground. And what really helps is to be able to calm and collect the mind, and to develop oneself in what gives greater benefit. …. This is because how you attend creates the dwelling place of the mind. So if we can begin to experience clarity and empathy for ourselves and others, we find ourselves living in a more appreciative and balanced way that encourages goodness to develop.

Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma

Working with who we are

Karl Duffy1 Comment

feet_walking1

Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth,

rather than touching the earth,

touching ground

Chogyam Trungpa

A solid place

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I spent the weekend on retreat with Ajahn Sucitto in the West of Ireland, so the posts for the next day or two will focus on how we can ground ourselves in the face of changing moods or challenging circumstances, prompted by some of his words :

One of the fundamental ways of bringing the mind into the present moment is to focus on how we sense our own body. This bodily sense – that is awareness
of the sensations and energies that manifest in the body – is something immediate that we can contemplate. It gives us ground and balance. It gives us the sense of being where we are. Although this may seem basic and obvious, much of the time we are not grounded in where we really are. Instead we are ‘out there’ in a world of changing circumstance and reactions to that, without having a central reference.

Ajahn Sucitto, Meditation: A Way of Awakening

Do you believe there is some place that will make the soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body; There you have a solid place for your feet. Think about it carefully! Don’t go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
And stand firm in that which you are.

Kabir

photo chris phutully

Sunday Quote: letting go of pushing

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Life is not a problem to be solved,

it is a mystery to be lived.

Osho

photo jim clark