Tag: balance

A break from ticking the boxes

Karl Duffy2 Comments

todolist-vf

Summer can be a period  when we feel a bit lighter as the days get warmer and the weather allows us have some down time or we take some holidays or maybe go on retreat. So to reflect this, the blog will have a lighter feel for the next few weeks, as there will be only one posting per day. This will  give those who follow the blog a bit of a break in their in-boxes (!)  as well as some space from the continual stimulation which is a feature of todays life,  even regarding our inner life. It also coincides with some  travel I am doing for lecturing and I am taking some time for refreshing the spirit and going on holidays.

Speaking of retreats, for those of you in Europe who are would like to deepen your practice , I would really recommend the Awakening Joy Workshop, being run by James Baraz  in Austria, on the weekend of July 4-6.  James is one of the kindest teachers I know and has been teaching meditation  since 1978. This workshop is based on his  Awakening Joy Book and Course. It would be an excellent way to nourish the sources of joy which can be found in the present moment and move away from our persistent living in the future.

Further details can be found by clicking on this link : http://www.arbor-seminare.de/awakening-joy

We have negative mental habits that come up over and over again. One of the most significant negative habits we should be aware of is that of constantly allowing our mind to run off into the future. Perhaps we got this from our parents. Carried away by our worries, we’re unable to live fully and happily in the present. Deep down, we believe we can’t really be happy just yet — that we still have a few more boxes to be checked off before we can really enjoy life. We speculate, dream, strategize, and plan for these “conditions of happiness” we want to have in the future.

Your meditation practice here is to bring your mind back to the present and just recognize the habit every time it pulls you away. You only need to breathe mindfully and smile to your habit energy: “Oh, I got pulled away by that again.” When you can recognize habit energies this way, they lose their hold on you, and you’re free once again to live peacefully and happily in the present.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Peace is Every Step

Letting go of the thinking mind

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Midges in the sunlight - geograph.org.uk - 1323384.jpg

You must descend from
your head into your heart.

At present your thoughts of God
are in your head. And God Himself is,
as it were, outside you, and
so your prayer and other spiritual
exercises remain exterior.

Whilst you are still
in your head, thoughts will not easily be subdued but
will always be whirling about, like snow
in winter or clouds of mosquitoes in summer.

Saint Theophan the Recluse, (1815–1894) monk of the Russian Orthodox Church

photo alan Murray-Rust

Not postponing life any more

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IMG_1238

The finality of death is meant to challenge us to decision, the decision to be fully present here now, and so begin eternal life. For eternity rightly understood is not the perpetuation of time, on and on, but rather the overcoming of time by the now that does not pass away. But we are always looking for opportunities to postpone the decision. So if you say: “Oh, after this I will have another life and another life,” you might never live, but keep dragging along half dead because you never face death.

Don Juan says to Carlos Castaneda, “That is why you are so moody and not fully alive, because you forget you are to die; you live as if you were going to live forever.” What remembrance of death is meant to do, as I understand it, is to help us make that decision.

David Steindl-Rast, Learning to Die

 

Entering with gentleness

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healing stones

If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy an awareness of those pains, mental and physical,

from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay. 


Stephen Levine

 

Not this nor that

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Vallee de Valserine 2

Some teachers say that God is pure being.  
But he is as high above being as the highest angel is above a gnat.  
I would be speaking as incorrectly in calling God a being as if I called the sun pale or black.

God is neither this or that.

Meister Eckhart, 1260 – 1328, Dominican Theologian and Preacher,

With enlightenment there is no liking and disliking: Such dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams or flowers in the air. Gain and loss, right and wrong: such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from everything that holds you back. When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached.…To come directly into harmony with this reality,  just simply say when any doubts arise, “There are not two.” In this “not two” nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.

Seng T’san,  6th Century, Third Chinese Zen patriarch.

Once again, thanks to Ellen van Kalmthout for the beautiful photo

I don’t mind

Karl Duffy5 Comments
peach blossom river
J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, spoke and travelled almost continually all over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey through words…that which is beyond words. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by asking, “Do you want to know my secret?”

Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them the key to understanding.

“This is my secret,” he said.   “I don’t mind what happens.”

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth – Awakening to your Life’s Purpose’