Tag: Be fully present

The centre of the circle

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 29 (Stephen Mitchell translation)

Grumbling

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

It takes faith to believe in tomorrow. But I think it takes more faith to believe that I am where I’m meant to be in my life right now

It’s easy to have hopes and dreams for our future, to have plans. We all need those. They help direct our path. And having things to look forward to, even the little things, makes life fun.

But having faith that on some far-off day our lives are going to be great and better – believing in tomorrow – doesn’t take nearly as much spiritual discipline as it does to believe in today.

Sometimes I really don’t like some of the things I have to do or that are going on in my life. I tend to weigh myself down with mumbling and grumbling, balking, digging my heels in, obsessing, dreading, ….and generally making things worse than they are. It’s not enough that I have to go through, endure, or do what I must. I make the job three times as hard with my attitude.

Melody Beattie, Faith

Nothing missing

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

There is no such thing

as an underdeveloped moment

Trungpa Rinpoche

The little things

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Little things may seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odourless but all together perfume the air.

George Bernanos

The journey itself

Karl Duffy1 Comment

We humans have a tendency to lean into the future or to seek something “more exciting” than what is in front of us. The challenge is to be fully awake and fully invested in the completeness of the present moment.

The moon and the sun are eternal travellers.

Even the years wander on.

A lifetime adrift in a boat or old age leading a tired horse into the years,

every day is a journey and the journey itself is home

Matsuo Basho, 17th century Japanese poet, Narrow Road to the Interior.

Already quietly here

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It’s like a vivid rainbow which you pursue
without ever catching,
or a dog chasing its own tail.

Although peace and happiness
do not exist as an actual thing or place,
it is always available and accompanies you every instant.

Don’t believe in the reality of good and bad experiences;
they are like today’s ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax
this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there –
open, inviting and comfortable.

Make use of this spaciousness,
this freedom and natural ease.
Don’t search any further
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.

from a ‘vajra poem’ by Lama Gendun Rinpoche, 1918-1997, Tibetan Buddhist teacher