Tag: Be fully present

Beyond our feeble words

Karl Duffy3 Comments

Some Taoist wisdom for the journey. Real relationship with what is deepest in our hearts is something we know instinctive and survives our poor words and concepts: 

I confess that there is nothing to teach:

There is no religion, no science, no writings, which will really show your mind the Way.

Today I speak in this way, tomorrow in another,

but always the Path is beyond words and beyond mind.

Lao Tzu (attributed),  The Huahujing

 

The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God.

I’m not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated.

Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry

Whats really important

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Often we run around busy, giving importance to this and that, and yet what is deepest in our heart remains there unchanged, like flowers within.

We have been sold a lifestyle,

when what our soul desired was life.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

 

 The mountain slopes crawl with lumberjacks, 

Axing everything in sight

Yet crimson flowers burn along the stream.

Chin-doba

Sunday Quote: Going nowhere

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Starting on holidays today…

Our early childhood interactions with our parents establish our own particular balance between being and doing. Society’s dominant model tells us that we need to be constantly doing, getting places, with careers that are “going somewhere”.  “Going nowhere” is not a good sign.  However, not leaning into the future allows the little present moments to be more rich, and sometimes the more complex things in life require us to hold the present and push down deeper into the unknown. As John Tarrant reminds us,  in-between is where we humans always are. 

Do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.

Dogen

As long as we conceive reality in terms of self and time, as a “me” who is someplace and can go some other place, then we are not realizing that going forwards, going backwards, and standing still are all entirely dependent upon the relative truths of self, locality, and time. In terms of physical reality, there is a coming and going. But think about it. Where can we truly go? Do we ever really go anywhere? Wherever we go we are always “here.”

Ajahn Amaro

Listening to your deepest self

Karl DuffyLeave a comment
 
 
What is the deep listening? ..
 Listen, and feel the beauty of your 

separation, the unsayable absence.

There’s a moon inside every human being. 

Learn to be companions with it.

Give more of your life to this listening. As

brightness is to time, so you are to

the one who talks to the deep ear in

your chest. I should sell my tongue

and buy a thousand ears when that

one steps near and begins to speak.

Rumi

Have confidence that you are enough

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Good instructions when you are feeling fragmented or small, or when you are giving too much power over to others.

Settle the self on the self

and let your life force blossom

Zen instruction, from my current reading : Blanche Hartman, Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart

Ways into life

Karl Duffy1 Comment

I believe that anybody can find a way into the world:  

some landscape, a particular room, neighborhood street, a  building such as a barn with its smells, or a thing privately treasured,  for instance a baseball glove or a pair of shoes. “All things are full of Gods” is an ancient Greek saying; “In my Fathers house are many mansions”, a Christian one. These suggest that there is something divine even in the baseball glove and the neighborhood street.

James Hillman