Tag: Gentleness

Enemies

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:HK Sheung Wan 新紀元廣場 Grand Millennium Plaza lift lobby 08 visitors queue morning July-2012.JPG

We encounter a lot of “enemies” each day – queues, bad weather, deadlines, meetings that don’t go according to plan, traffic slowing us down when we are in a hurry, people who disagree with us, events we do not like. We instinctively try to avoid,  grumble about them and turn them into enemies, with us quickly feeling like victims.  This quote reminds us that a lot  of our dissatisfaction is self-created, a lot of stress caused by our own minds.

When an enemy arises in your life, even though you may kill it,

another will simply arise,

because all arisings are simply a manifestation of your own state of consciousness

Kalu Rinpoche

photo crepoastoram

Not break but bend

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Windswept tree in Clare.jpg

Some thoughts  from St Francis de Sales, who lived in the beautiful French town  of Annecy, on  the soft approach we should take toward challenges and towards ourselves:

When you encounter difficulties and contradictions,

do not try to break them,

but bend them with gentleness and time

St Francis de Sales

photo of tree in County Clare by Maureen

An act of hospitality

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Sit down and relax.jpg

Mindfulness is an act of hospitality.

A way of learning to treat ourselves with kindness and care that slowly begins to percolate into the deepest recesses of our being while gradually offering us the possibility of relating to others in the same manner. Working with whatever is present is enough. There is no need to condemn ourselves for not feeling loving or kind. Rather, the process simply asks us to entertain the possibility of offering hospitality to ourselves no matter what we are feeling or thinking.

This week try taking some time to explore the possibility of sitting with yourself as if you were your own best friend.

Saki Santorelli, Befriending Self

photo Carriec

 

Blocking ourselves

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Shadow Person

Most of us find it easier to extend compassion towards others than towards ourselves and our own mistakes. We can be our own biggest critics which just intensifies our preoccupation with “ourselves” as something fixed and needing to be improved.

Most of the shadows of this life

are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Where to start

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Kindness jar.jpg

Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself.
You may not be perfect, but you are all you’ve got to work with.

The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the
total acceptance of who you are.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

photo hunterdt

Not giving up on ourselves

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Climbing Meldon Hill - geograph.org.uk - 1478803.jpg

The idea of developing courage doesn’t seem to trigger people’s inadequacies. I think they know they have some courage. The problem is they think they’re supposed to be courageous in facing the outside world, whereas what is so profoundly transformative is the courage to look at yourself. It’s the courage to not give up on yourself, even though you do see your aggression, jealousy, meanness, and so on. And it turns out that in facing these things, we develop not self-denigration but compassion for our shared humanity.

Pema Chodron

photo Derek Harper