Tag: Be fully present

Seeing connections

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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The world is a closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through. Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. … Every separation is a link.

Simone Weil

Hurry up

Karl Duffy2 Comments
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I watched the Ireland People of The Year Awards on Saturday evening, which showcased extraordinary people who have helped others or overcome adversity in their own lives, like nine-year-old Joe Prendergast,  who was determined to write a book and dedicate it to his father who died slowly of lung cancer. He is now completing his third book, and donates the proceeds to Cancer research. But there was also an example of everyday “extraordinary” commitment in the simple story of the man who won “Dad of the Year”. He is a fireman who,  having seen how easily lives can be changed in a second, tries to make the moments of each day special for his children.  His young son said that his father allows him do most things, including allowing “him to get dirty”.  As this poem reminds us, how we model our priorities and our use of time is easily picked up by our children:
 
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store   
and the gas station and the green market and   
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,   
as she runs along two or three steps behind me   
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.   
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?   
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?   
Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,   
Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry—   
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.   
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking   
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,   
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.
 
 
Marie Howe, “Hurry” from When She Named Fire
 
photo zivya

Rushing, time, and opening to our lives

Karl Duffy4 Comments

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It doesn’t actually take any more time to say good-bye or hug you know, your children or whatever it is in the morning when you’re on your way to work. But the mind says, ‘I don’t have any time for this.’ But actually that’s all you have time for, is this because there’s nothing else than this…So when your four year-old can’t decide which dress she wants to wear, that’s not a problem for you, unless you make it a problem for you. That’s just the way four year-olds are. And the more we can sort of learn these lessons the more we will not be in some sense running towards our death, but in a sense opening to our lives.

Jon Kabat Zinn

photo D Sharon Pruitt

The art of living

Karl Duffy2 Comments

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The art of living…is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past….on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as being utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and fully receptive

Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

In the present

Karl Duffy3 Comments

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Our way is to practice one step at a time,

one breath at a time,

with no gaining idea.

Shunryu Suzuki

Acceptance

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Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Then suddenly you will come to know: meditation follows you. If you love the work that you are doing, if you love the way you are living, then you are meditative.

Osho