Tag: Gentleness

Not judging our emotions

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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Times of travel or transition can give rise to a lot of emotions and they always like to give birth to thoughts about how we are doing or where we are headed in life. It is best to just hold emotions as mental events that pass through and not believe the stories that arise out of them:

Trust in the simple act of attention. Awareness includes emotions as mental objects, rather than as subjects. If you don’t know this, you tend to identify with your emotions and your emotions become yourself. You become this emotional thing that has become terribly upset because the world is not respecting you enough. Our refuge is in the deathless reality rather than the transient and unstable conditions. If you trust in awareness, then the self and the emotions about oneself, whatever they might be, can be seen in terms of what they are — not judged, not made into a problem, but just noticed: “It’s like this.”

Ajahn Sumedho, The Problem with Personality

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A place of compassion

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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The mind isn’t always a shining light, is it? Even if you don’t act upon them, becoming aware of jealous, moaning, manipulative, greedy or fearful states of mind is uncomfortable. We tend to ignore such moods or bury them under activity or distraction, but as long as they’re not dealt with, we’re divided internally. So what would it take to become whole and peaceful? Isn’t that about relating to how it is right now from a place of compassion and non-identification? Isn’t that the faculty that could be developed to a lasting excellence, which would provide us with a good perspective and attitude?

Ajahn Sucitto, Good Enough

photo Shawn Allen California USA

A way of working with stress

Karl Duffy5 Comments

tea22

Can you accept the moments of anger and fear as guests,
be willing to receive them with kindness

without feeling obliged to serve them a five-course meal?

Christina Feldman

Meeting ourselves

Karl Duffy1 Comment

hands222

For us to be free, we need to stop believing the thoughts that something is wrong.  We need to stop running away  from the very vulnerability that needs a profound type of  self-compassion. Whatever we cannot embrace with love or with acceptance imprisons us. It keeps us in the trance of a bad self. So the path of emotional healing is really the path of stopping the war, of pausing, of not believing the judgments, of not continuing to punish ourself. Instead of running away and trying to escape the rawness that is here, really meeting it with a deep,  deep compassion.

Tara Brach, Meditations for Emotional Healing

A Generous spirit

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

mother duck

When we are stressed we have a tendency to close in on ourselves, to measure our time, fixate on our problems and not notice a lot that is happening around us. We think that this is the best way to protect our energy and our heart. Paradoxically, however, it seems that another strategy is more helpful,  going against the voice within us and turning outwards, noticing small details in the day and reaching out to others. An East African proverb reminds us You can share even if you have a little.  It may be just noticing how good the coffee tastes, a smile, a friendly phone call, a helping hand, making someone welcome.   This quotation from Cormac McCarthy reminds us to create little moments of generosity, of connection, of celebration, even when our life seems barren. There will be innumerable little moments in a day to be kind, even if our hearts do not feel like it.

When you’ve got nothing else, construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

A generous heart is never lonesome. A generous heart has luck. The lonesomeness of contemporary life is partly due to the failure of generosity. Increasingly we complete with each other for  goods, for image, and for status.

John O’Donoghue, Eternal Echoes

Letting go of effort

Karl Duffy1 Comment

carrying load

Mindfulness and compassion training is a radical process of letting go of our burdens. We are not trying to be more mindful or more compassionate: that’s just more work. Instead we can sit down for a few minutes, see what arises and give ourselves love just because….just because. And then go gently back into the world.

Chris Germer