Tag: Be fully present

Stillness in the wind

Karl Duffy1 Comment

I did a retreat last weekend with Ajahn Amaro who emphasized gaining insight into the ever-present dynamic of “I, me and mine”, and developing a mind which is capable of observing these labels

Enlightenment, liberation, depends on the recognition of the radical separateness of awareness – “the one who knows” – and the world of the five khandhas (Sanskrit: skandhas)…The key is training the heart to rest in the various dimensions of knowing, and not becoming entangled in the khandhas.

Here are some words from Ajahn Chah that encompass [these] themes:

“This mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful… really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind – the “fluttering” is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn’t follow them, it doesn’t “flutter.” If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions we will be unmoved.

Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. We must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them; to make it peaceful.

Ajahn Amaro, Like Oil and Water

[The 5 khandhas, or in Sanskrit,  skandhas, are form, feeling-tone, perception, thoughts and emotions, and consciousness.]

Sunday Quote: Lovelinesss

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day

Evelyn Underhill, 1875 – 1941, English writer on mysticism

Sit back and watch

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

To live in the present moment requires a change in our inner posture. Instead of expanding or shoring up our fortress of “I” – the ego – which culture and often therapy try to help us do, contemplation waits to discover what this “I” consists of. What is this “I” that I take so seriously?…

Thomas Keating teaches a beautifully simple exercise to use in contemplation. Imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a river. Observe each of your thoughts coming along as if they’re saying, “Think me, think me.” Watch your feelings come by saying, “Feel me, feel me.” Acknowledge that you’re having the feeling; acknowledge that you’re having the thought. Don’t hate it, don’t judge it, don’t critique it, don’t, in any way, move against it. Simply name it: “resentment toward so and so,” “a thought about such and such.” Admit that you’re having it, then place it on a boat and let it go down the river. The river is your stream of consciousness.

Richard Rohr Watching the River, Centre for Action and Contemplation, May 10, 2016

Going with the current

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

How can you follow the course of your life

if you do not let it flow

Lao Tzu quoted in Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Be patient

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In Tibetan Buddhism there’s a set of teachings for cultivating compassion called mind training, or lojong. One of the lojong teachings is, “Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.” This means if a painful situation occurs, be patient, and if a pleasant situation occurs, be patient.

This is an interesting point. Usually, we jump all the time; whether it’s pain or pleasure, we want resolution. So if we’re happy and something is great, we could also be patient then, and not fill up the space, going a million miles an hour —impulse shopping, impulse talking, impulse acting out.

Pema Chodron

Every step today

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If you look for the truth outside yourself

It gets further and further away

Today, walking alone, I meet him everywhere I step

He is the same as me, yet I am not him

Only if you understand it in this way

will you merge with the way things are.

Dongshan, 9th Century China, Chan Buddhist monk (Stephen Mitchell translation)