Tag: Be fully present

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Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Thatched cottage Maghera Ardara. - geograph.org.uk - 1073951.jpg

Belonging is related to longing.  If you hyphenate belonging, it yields a lovely axiom for spiritual growth:  Be – Your – Longing.  Longing is a precious instinct in the soul. Where you belong should always be worthy of your dignity. You should belong first in your own interiority.  If you belong there, and if you are in rhythm with yourself and connected to that deep, unique source within, then you will never be vulnerable when your outside belonging is qualified, relativized, or taken away.  You will still be able to stand on your own ground, the ground of your soul, where you are not a tenant, where you are at home.

John O’Donohue,  Anamchara

photo bart whelan

Not avoiding

Karl Duffy2 Comments
 File:14 06 28 Detour Sign Dunedin FL 01.jpg
To see myself and my life as they truly are is joy. 
After all the struggle and avoiding and denying and going the other way,
 it is deeply satisfying for a second to be there with life as it is. 
The satisfaction is the very core of ourselves.
 Who we are is beyond words –
 just that open power of life,  manifesting constantly in all sorts of interesting things,
 even in our own misery and struggles. 
The hassle is both horrendous and wholesome.
Charlotte Joko Beck.

Staying fluid

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seaWhen you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine many things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are fixed. However, if you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that there is nothing at all that has an unchanging self.

Dogen

Bare Attention

Karl Duffy2 Comments

If you would look at a flower, any thought about that flower prevents you from looking at it. The words the rose, the violet, it is this flower, that flower, it is that species,  keep you from observing. To look there must be no interference of the word, which is the objectifying of thought. There must be freedom from the word, and to look there must be silence; otherwise you can’t look. If you look at your wife or husband, all the memories that you have had, either of pleasure or pain, interfere with looking. It is only when you look without the image that there is a relationship.

Jiddu Krisnmurti.

Photo Daniel J Layton

Slow time

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Rain on grass2.jpg

I went for a walk yesterday, but being Ireland, it started to rain and I had to abandon my plans. The day before had been so warm and bright…At times like this we can get irritated, as what “should” have happened gets disrupted. We rush on to the next moment, not noticing what is actually in front of us. We want reality to correspond to what we think should be going on, and do not go slow enough to notice what actually is:

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

John O’Donohue, A Blessing for One who is Exhausted.

photo adrian benko

Dropping our efforts

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Baby.jpg

Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don’t you experience it? Because you’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!

Anthony de Mello sj