Tag: balance

Not waiting until everything is perfect

Karl Duffy1 Comment

It’s odd in a way, this business of Perfect Christmasses. The story of the first Christmas is the story of a series of completely unplanned, messy events – a surprise pregnancy, an unexpected journey that’s got to be made, a complete muddle over the hotel accommodation when you get there… Not exactly a perfect holiday.

But it tells us something really vital. We try to plan all this stuff and stay in charge, and too often (especially with advertisers singing in our ears the whole time) we think that unless we can cook the perfect dinner, plan the perfect wedding, organise the perfect Christmas, we somehow don’t really count or we can’t hold our heads up. But in the complete mess of the first Christmas, God says, ‘Don’t worry – I’m not going to wait until you’ve got everything sorted out perfectly before I get involved with you. I’m already there for you in the middle of it all, and if you just let yourself lean on me a bit instead of trying to make yourself and everything around you perfect by your own efforts, everyone will feel a little more of my love flowing’.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Pause for Thought, BBC Radio 2.

Caring for oneself today

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times.  Thomas Merton

Obviously Merton wasn’t speaking about pathologically self-destructive behavior. Instead he was drawing our attention to the shadow side of normative, even seemingly positive, culturally approved behavior. He was referring to how we do great violence to ourselves simply in the manner in which we go about arranging our lives…

Philip Moffitt, Violence against Self

Every moment gives an opportunity

Karl Duffy1 Comment

There is no question that the real mindfulness teacher, and the real meditation practice, is life itself. Every moment is an opportunity to realign ourselves with the actuality of what is unfolding, however challenging or mundane, and thereby choose not lose ourselves in our interpretations and stories about what is going on. This is easier than you may think. It is also hugely liberating each time we make even a momentary gesture in that direction. And those moments, those conscious realigning gestures can add up to a different life, a more mindful and emotionally balanced life. Not only that: they can influence your future in ways that may be not only beneficial to you, but transformative. Because if you take care of this moment, now, with kindness and awareness, the next moment will be different because of your having taken care of this one, because of your gesture of sanity, trust, and balance.

Jon Kabat Zinn

When meditation is like watching television

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

You have to learn the correct spirit of sitting. If you make a lot of effort when you sit, you become tense and that creates pain all over your body. Sitting should be pleasant. When you turn on the television in your living room, you can sit for hours without suffering. Yet when you sit for meditation, you suffer. Why? Because you struggle. You want to succeed in your meditation and so you fight. When you are watching television you don’t fight. You have to learn to sit without fighting . If you know how to sit like that, sitting is very pleasant. When Nelson Mandela visited France he was asked what he like to do the most. He said that because he was always busy, what he liked to do the most was just to sit and do nothing. Because to sit and do nothing is a pleasure – you restore yourself. The problem is not to sit or not to sit, but how to sit.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Be Beautiful, Be Yourself, Shambala Sun

Visualizing our day

Karl Duffy1 Comment

What do you visualize before you start work? Do you imagine yourself managing the day successfully and calmly? Or do you anticipate all the stressful things that might come up an d how overwhelmed you’ll feel? Many of us tend to ruminate or catastrophize about the negative events we expect to happen at work. Maybe you worry about dealing with irate customers, dread making a phone call, or cringe at the prospect of hurting your back again. Regardless of whether or not these scenarios may happen or not, we often don’t imagine ourselves handling them very well. When we worry, we are prone to focus on how bad something will be, without doing any concrete problem solving or realizing that life will continue, even if this anticipated disaster occurs. Before work, rather than worry about the coming day…visualize in a positive way what will happen today. Imagine yourself having a nice day. If you’re likely to encounter obstacles or setbacks, visualize managing them well. Research shows that this kind of mental rehearsal improves later performance.

Jonathan S. Kaplan, Urban Mindfulness

Keep your practice simple

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In meditation, the practice of calming, resting, and dwelling  happily in the present moment can be difficult at first, because our minds are always racing. The more you try to stop your racing mind, the more it resists. Mindfulness is not meant to suppress or get rid of the racing mind, but simply recognize its presence. First you need to recognize that thinking nonstop has become a strong habit for you. The easiest way to stop that habit from taking you over is to learn how to breathe in a sitting position for a short time, for just five or ten breaths. If you think you have to practice meditation for too long a period of time, there is no way you will maintain a daily practice. Instead throughout the day, use the ringing of the telephone, or the sound of your watch, or any other cue,  to stop all doing and thinking  for a moment. Just enjoy your breathing. Our son started sitting when he was three or four years old. He sat for ten breaths every morning. And if a little child can do that, I am sure we grown-ups can do it as well.

Nguyen Ann-Huong, Walking Meditation