Tag: Be fully present

A New Years intention: Friendliness towards ourselves…

Karl Duffy6 Comments

cookie monster

There is a  classic text which tells of a sitar or lute player who gets discouraged in his meditation practice and asks the Buddha for advice.  “What happens when you tune your instrument too tightly?” the Buddha asked, to which the musician answered “The strings break,”.  “And what happens when you string it too loosely?”, the Buddha continued, “When it’s too loose, no sound comes out,” the musician answered,   “the best tune comes from a string that is not too tight and not too loose.” “That,” said the Buddha, “is how to practice: not too tight and not too loose.”

  That should be our resolution for meditation for this year – not too loose but also not too tight. Too loose means that we do not make it a priority and do not structure it into our schedule; however too tight means that we are harsh with ourselves when we fail or it becomes another thing to feel bad about. The Cookie Monster does not have it completely right – we do not wish to nourish our familiar patterns of avoidance by running away from difficult moments, but wish to look at everything that arises in our every moment. However, he makes us smile and take things – and ourselves –  a bit lighter and in that he is a good teacher.

…and of wanting to be someone else

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Staring At The Sun.jpg

You spend so much of your time
expecting to become someone else
always someone who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you

meanwhile in your life you hardly notice
the world around you, lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself

with whom as you recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long

William Stanley Merwin,   American poet, To Waiting

Experience and interpretation

Karl Duffy1 Comment

SPOTTED OWL

A crucial skill for minimizing emotional chaos and sustaining clarity in your life is the ability to distinguish between your experience and your interpretation of your experience.  Your experience is simply whatever is happening in the moment — a sound, a taste, a bodily sensation, an emotion, any kind of interaction, etc.  Your interpretation is your mind’s reaction to that experience.  One way to understand this difference to to practice that when you are directly experience a moment of life, you are within it, when you are interpreting it, you are outside it……. The next step toward breaking your habit of automatically interpreting every experience is to practice being mindful from moment to moment of the distinction between experience and interpretation.  Begin to notice, ‘Is there a difference between my direct experience of what’s going on and how I’ve interpreted it?’  You’ll need to practice noticing over and over again before you really start to know the difference.   The more you’re able to distinguish experience, from interpretation, the more you’ll be able to stay in the moment, the calmer you’ll be, and the more choice you’ll have for responding skillfully to whatever circumstances arise. 

Phillip Moffitt, From Emotional Chaos to Clarity

With a child’s eyes

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

child

The ability to drop into the present is sometimes referred to as child-mind, because children, little ones, look at things that openly, from that degree of relaxation, from that degree of nowness. Can you remember what it was like as a child, sitting under a bush and how it smelled, going to grandmothers and how her house or garden smelled, and how her perfume smelled? Think of a child going to a museum and not having a clue that what they are seeing is a Picasso or a Renoir. Children just look with this kind of open awareness. 

Pema Chodron,  How to Meditate

Time for ourselves….

Karl Duffy1 Comment

tea22

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves

–  slowly, evenly –

without rushing toward the future

Thich Nhat Hahn

A Christmas lesson: In the ordinary

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Proud mother, Kalaw.jpg

Nothing in life is trivial

Life is whole wherever and whenever we touch it,

and one moment or event is not less sacred than another

Vimala Thakar

Beannachtaí na Nollaig oraibh go léir

(Christmas blessings from Ireland to all of you who drop by or who read each day)

photo vera and jean christophe