balance – Page 547 – Mindfulbalance

Stop fixing and choosing and doing and making….

November 5, 2011November 4, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

The engine that makes this go is taking a step back and trusting the body, trusting the breath, trusting the heart. We’re living our lives madly trying to hold onto everything, and it looks like it might work for awhile but in the end it always fails, and it never was working, and the way to be happy, the way to be loving, the way to be free is to really be willing to let go of everything on every occasion or at least to make that effort. So the practice really works with sitting down, returning awareness to the body, returning awareness to the breath. It usually involves sitting up straight and opening up the body and lifting the body so that the breath can be unrestrained. And then returning the mind to the present moment of being alive, which is anchored in the breath, in the body.

Then, of course, other things happen. You have thoughts, you have feelings. You might have a pain, an ache, visions, memories, reflections. All these things arise, but instead of applying yourself to them and getting entangled in them, you just bear witness to it, let it go, come back to the breathing and the body, and what happens is you release a whole lot of stuff in yourself. A whole new process comes into being that would not have been there if you were always fixing and choosing and doing and making. This way you’re allowing something to take place within your heart.

Norman Fischer

Noticing the effects of a frantic age 2: The Sabbath Manifesto

October 30, 2011November 3, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

One response to the increasingly frantic and plugged-in character of today’s world can be seen in an initiative entitled “The Sabbath Manifesto”. This manifesto was developed by a small group of artists, writers, filmmakers and media professionals who began to feel the need to respond to an increasingly fast-paced way of living. The idea developed to set aside one day of the week – based on the ancient notion of Sabbath – to unwind, unplug, relax, reflect, get outdoors, and spend time with loved ones. They created Ten core Principles to guide their efforts on those days, principles such as “Find Silence“, “Avoid Commerce“, “Get Outside”, “Connect with Loved Ones” and “Avoid Technology“. Their efforts to promote reflection on taking periodic vacations from the technology jungle have met with some media interest, and they promote a “National Day of Unplugging” , the next one taking place on March 23-24, 2012. They are not beyond using technology to help them, recommending an app to help people take a “digital detox”. Their site is an encouragement to all to reflect on the role which technology is playing in their lives.

That such a reflection is necessary can be seen in anecdotal reports from some therapists about couples who are so busy that they communicate almost entirely through text, email and phone messages and of families where each member may be in the same room but everyone is on a separate screen, be it a laptop checking mail, or computer gaming, or texting or watching tv. Another increasing phenomenon is that of checking more than one screen at a time, such as checking email or texting while watching television or a movie. Further evidence of technology’s effect can be seen in ongoing research on the brain, which I will look at in the next post.

www.sabbathmanifesto.org/about

…..where peace comes dropping slow

October 18, 2011October 18, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Yeats’ father would read to him from Walden when he was a child. Later, when living in London he wrote this poem, wishing he could retire to the quietness of nature on an island he knew as a boy. Most of us do not have the luxury of a real island to go to, but we create our refuge within ourselves and take shelter there when the storms of the day get too strong. We allow the mind and the body to settle, even if only for a brief moment, and allow peace to drop slowly in.

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

WB Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Developing awareness is the key

September 22, 2011September 20, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The busy mind is who you think you are. It is easier to see, like the face of the person standing right in front of you. For example, the thought you’re thinking right now is more obvious to you than your awareness of that thought. When you get angry, you pay more attention to what you’re angry about than to the actual source of your anger, where your anger is coming from. In other words, you notice what your mind is doing, but you don’t see the mind itself. You identify yourself with the contents of this busy mind – your thoughts, emotions, ideas – and end up thinking that all of this stuff is “me” and “how I am.” When you do that, it’s like being asleep and dreaming and believing that your dream images are true.

Dzogchen Ponlop, Rebel Buddha

On learning from nature

September 11, 2011September 12, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

There is often an unspoken assumption that things should go smoothly in life, or that the Universe has a direct plan for us, and that it communicates it easily. Consequently, we get upset that things are not always that straightforward. When things go wrong we can often regard it as a violation of some supposed natural entitlement to order and predictability. However, if we look at the natural world we do not find complete support for this underlying assumption. The recent turbulence in the weather, and the natural disasters of this past year, demonstrate that things in nature are frequently unpredictable and disruptive. So we should not expect anything different in our lives. Bad things can happen and our lives can change, in ways that we cannot predict. Things happen in indirect ways, and reasons are not always immediately evident. Patience is needed if we wish to understand or work out what is our path.

Clouds are not spheres, Mountains are not cones,

Coastlines are not circles and bark is not smooth,

nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity.

Benoit Mandelbrot, French-American mathematician.

Knowing you have enough

September 10, 2011September 11, 2011 Karl Duffy6 Comments

The Irish phrase Go leor can be translated in different ways in English, including the words “enough” and “plenty”. Today’s world is good at promoting and accumulating plenty. The message that we get in so many ways is that if you get more you will get happier. However, for a lot of people, this sense of “more” just seems to increase and expand – more expectations in work, more information coming at us, more decisions to make, more demands on our time. And this emphasis on plenty sometimes distracts us from where our real focus should be – on coming to see when we have enough. Thus we can find that we are less skilled at knowing when to let go and be satisfied with what we have, or how much we do. Reflecting on replacing the word “plenty” with “enough” can help us here. Deciding what is enough – and learning to be content with that – is one of the most important pieces of work that we can do.