Tag: Be fully present

In front of our eyes

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Meditation is misunderstood as something you envision in your head, when in fact it is something to be seen with your own eyes.

What you begin to see is that the place where you thought your life occurred —  rumination and memory,  anxiety and fear — isn’t where your life takes place at all. Those mental recesses are where pain occurs, but life occurs elsewhere, in a place we are usually too preoccupied to notice, too distracted to see: right in front of our eyes.

The point of meditation is to stop making things up and see things as they are.


Karen Maezen Miller

Making friends with ourselves

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

gentle

The ninth Karama, a sixteenth-century meditation master, wrote of a “reverse meditation”, in which we recognize thoughts as they occur and regard them as friends. This “reverses” the tendency to regard thoughts as distractions from the main focus; now the thoughts themselves are the main focus. Mindfulness-of-mind practice is a further step on the path of making friends with ourselves. This is the heart of awareness practice: making friends with our entire being as a stepping stone to embracing our world.

Gaylon Ferguson, Natural Wakefulness

Running and missing

Karl Duffy2 Comments

runningFrequently for us time is money. We must save as much time as possible, so that we have free time for more important things. The question is – what is more important to us? Often we cannot do much at all with all the time “saved”. We are habitually in a rush. But where to? We’ve become victims of our own frenzy – we rush at all times including our free time. He too we want to do more ever faster. But this constant rushing takes away our ability to feel and to experience the things we do. Increasingly we only feel alive in the midst of the hustles and bustles. We no longer feel ourselves, our breathing, our body, or the stirring of our heart. As the poet Ingeborg Bachman once said: “Idleness is the beginning of all love”

Anselm Gruen, Angels Calling

Today is where we live

Karl DuffyLeave a comment
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What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Philip Larkin

Aimlessness

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:India - Haridwar - 002 - cows wandering aimlessly among the pilgrims (2086490984).jpg

It is our tendency in daily life to become goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very focused on getting there. At times, this may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the way. Apranihita is a Sanskrit word meaning “wishlessness” or “aimlessness.” We don’t need to keep running after something, because everything is already here, within. Often we tell ourselves, “Don’t just sit there, do something!”  But when we practice awareness, we discover that the opposite may be more helpful: “Don’t just do something, sit there!” We can train ourselves to stop from time to time throughout the day, to come back to the present and let go of our worries and preoccupations. When our minds and bodies are calm, we can see our situations more clearly and we know better what to do and what not to do.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Fierce without hating

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

One of the functions of mindfulness is to give us options. We can see our reactions building early, and not just after we have already pressed “send” on that nasty, hostile email or closed a door we actually hope could remain open. We see what is happening within, without panic or getting lost in the reaction. We know we can follow it out or let it go. And because mindfulness helps us be in touch with a big range of feelings, thoughts, and reactions, we know from experience that we can take a strong, principled stand on something while not demonizing someone else for their views or even their actions. We learn that we can be fierce without hating.

Sharon Salzberg