Tag: Be fully present

A motto for the new month

Karl Duffy4 Comments
20150919_085205(1)

Awareness is your refuge:

Awareness of the changingness of feelings, of moods, of material change and emotional change:

Stay with that, because it’s a refuge that is indestructible.

It’s not something that changes. It’s a refuge you can trust in.

This refuge is not something that you create. It’s not a creation. It’s not an ideal.

It’s very practical and very simple, but easily overlooked or not noticed.

When you’re mindful, you’re beginning to notice: 

It’s like this

Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence

A special place and time

Karl DuffyLeave a comment
File:You are here.jpg
The Place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you.
 
 Hafiz

A poem for the start of autumn: to be a witness

Karl Duffy5 Comments

File:Apples on Ground (8399553959).jpg

I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.

I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars.

I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall’s gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow.

I do not know if the air remembers September or if the night remembers
the moon.

I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so.

Perhaps that is the reason for our births — to be the memory for
creation.

Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.

Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer:
“What can you tell me about September?”

Burton D. Carley, September Meditation

photo leslie seaton

 

Noticing

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:I see peanuts! (8408863048).jpg

A lesson on really paying attention, from an unusual guide:

“Holmes you see everything!”  Watson exclaimed.

“I see no more than you,

but I have trained myself to notice what I see“, said Holmes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

photo ian kirk

The gap between words

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think.

Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.

A. A. Milne, The House on Pooh Corner

Sunday Quote: Fully alive using the ordinary

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Gingham teatowel.jpg

Let us come alive to the splendour that is all around us

and see the beauty in ordinary things

Thomas Merton

photo Lewis Ronald