Tag: Be fully present

Who you already are

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Don’t go looking elsewhere. Let go of all those ideas about lacking something or needing to attain something

The core essence of it all [life].. is to be who you already are –  rather than get lost in who you are afraid you are,  or think you might be and want to be – in the only moment we ever get, which is just this one. That’s easy to say, but it’s a non-trivial thing to actually engage in.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.

Kabir

Sunday Quote: What keeps us going

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“Grace is everywhere” were the final words of the priest in Bernanos’ book Journal d’un Curé de Campagne. Some weekends we see it easily in nature. Other times in the presence of a friend:

It is light that matters,
The light of understanding.
Who has ever reached it
Who has not met the furies again and again?
Who has reached it without
Those sudden acts of grace?

May Sarton, The Angels and the Furies

A new month: Living fully, without regrets

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File:Tully Cross thatched cottage.jpg

John O’Donohue told a story once about an occasion when he was still a priest and was sitting at the bedside of a dying man, offering his comfort and his presence. The man turned to him and said, with a great sense of calm, that he had no regrets, because he had taken a great big bite out of life.

It would be a significant thing if we could say that, not just at the end of life, but at the end of each day.

 Most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.

Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness

photo Linda Buckley

The difficulty of just being still

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Here in my head, language
keeps making its tiny noises.

How can I hope to be friends
with the hard white stars

whose flaring and hissing are not speech
but a pure radiance?

How can I hope to be friends
with the yawning spaces between them

where nothing, ever, is spoken?

…What can we do
but keep on breathing in and out,

modest and willing, and in our places?

Mary Oliver, Stars

When things are not clear, be patient

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If each day falls

inside each night,

there exists a well

where clarity is imprisoned.

We need to sit on the rim

of the well of darkness

and fish for fallen light

with patience.


Pablo Neruda

As it is

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Meditation is a form of training the mind, so that it does  not get hooked by all our inner storms, but rather relates to the world, or other people, in a fresh way, just as they are:

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used the phrase “first thought, best thought” to refer to that first moment of fresh perception, before the colorful and coloring clouds of judgment and personal interpretation take over. “First thought” is “best thought” because it has not yet got covered over by all our opinions and interpretations, our hopes and fears, our likes and dislikes. It is direct perception of the world as it is.

Dr Jeremy Hayward, First Thought