Tag: heart

The shortest, darkest day of the year

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a day that has always held significance for humans, as can be seen by the major Celtic and Christian feasts that are celebrated around this time, and whose symbols are still used today, even if their true meaning is long-lost. The Ancient Celts seemed to follow closely the passage of the sun and linked it to the sacredness of certain days. On this day,  in the burial chamber of Newgrange in Ireland  – built some 500 years before the pyramids of Giza and more than 1,000 years before Stonehenge –   they ensured that the rising sun penetrated right into the place where their loved ones were buried. In this way they marked the turning point of the year, even when times were difficult, where the days gradually grow longer and move the countryside back towards the warmth and rebirth of spring.

We can learn from the fact that there have always been rituals of light in the darkness, cycles of growth after periods of rest,  hope returning when all seemed lost. There is a deep wisdom in understanding these ways of nature deep in our own bones. No matter how dark a place we find ourselves in from time to time,  or how deeply we feel buried,  we come to know how light can still enter and illuminate. If we come to see that all circumstances change and pass away,  we get in touch with a deeper, more ancient wisdom, no matter how frozen we feel at any particular moment.  This wisdom holds onto the fact that we are complete in ourselves, no matter what our passing thoughts  tell us, or if we cannot feel it at that time.

Because our moods change constantly, we might not understand that cheerfulness is in fact an inherent quality of mind. Within the meditative tradition, cheerfulness is considered to be the natural, harmonious and wholesome expression of our truest self. This kind of cheerfulness helps the mind to move forward, beyond the distortion and torment of emotions. Cheerfulness comes naturally with meditation. It is a quality of space created within the mind. When there’s space in the mind, the mind relaxes, and we feel a simple sense of delight. We experience the possibility of living a life in which we aren’t continuously bombarded by emotions, discursiveness and concepts about the nature of things.

In dark times  when we feel even more burdened and insecure, we should be contemplating our true nature more than ever. It can cheer us up on any day. Despite all the ups and downs of our life, we are fundamentally awake individuals who have a natural ability to become compassionate and wise. Our nature is to be cheerful. This cheerfulness is deeper than temporary conditions. The day does not have to be sunny for us to be cheerful. We are free of having to depend on something else to make us happy. We can bask freely in the natural radiance of our mind.  This is the equanimity of true cheerfulness—nothing more, nothing less.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, A Simple Sense of Delight

Caring for oneself today

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times.  Thomas Merton

Obviously Merton wasn’t speaking about pathologically self-destructive behavior. Instead he was drawing our attention to the shadow side of normative, even seemingly positive, culturally approved behavior. He was referring to how we do great violence to ourselves simply in the manner in which we go about arranging our lives…

Philip Moffitt, Violence against Self

Finding strength to face challenges

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In the last week before Christmas Day, the Christian Liturgy uses a series of ancient invocations, called the O Antiphons, which date from the fifth Century. These beautiful statements reflect deep longings in the human psyche  –  looking for wisdom, or the key, or the source – and in the liturgy are focused on the immanent coming of Christ. They reflect deep longings, comforting, calming and focusing these universal human needs. Today’s antiphon is addressed by the person who feels weak and overwhelmed, who looks for strength, and recalls the theme of God intervening in history, appearing to Moses and leading him out of slavery in Egypt. He then shows a way towards happiness in his law. The ancient metaphor of “an arm outstretched” is a way of talking about strength and protection.

Texts such as these work on a number of levels and can be applied easily to the inner longings of the human spirit. Each day, we too need to draw on many sources of strength, both internal and external. Sometimes we are faced with unfamiliar territory or challenges which daunt us at first sight. Or we may need to leave behind those places in our lives where we have been held captive. We can see the word “Egypt” as not just the ancient land where the Hebrews were slaves:  the Hebrew word Mitzraim means “a narrow place.” So “going out from Egypt” can mean going from a narrow place, a place where we are stuck, to a wider place, a place where we are free. So often we get trapped in “narrow places”, stuck in situations or in our limited views of our own capabilities. We default easily to a sense of ourselves as weak or defective. At times of change we need to keep our focus on words and ideas that give us strength, that link us to our natural goodness and fearless nature. The themes at this time of the year remind us to keep our eyes fixed in hope on the light that appears in the darkness, to see where we are trapped and to let go of what is dead in our lives.

O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel,
You appeared to Moses in the burning bush,
and gave him the Law on Sinai:
come and save us with an outstretched arm.

Every moment gives an opportunity

Karl Duffy1 Comment

There is no question that the real mindfulness teacher, and the real meditation practice, is life itself. Every moment is an opportunity to realign ourselves with the actuality of what is unfolding, however challenging or mundane, and thereby choose not lose ourselves in our interpretations and stories about what is going on. This is easier than you may think. It is also hugely liberating each time we make even a momentary gesture in that direction. And those moments, those conscious realigning gestures can add up to a different life, a more mindful and emotionally balanced life. Not only that: they can influence your future in ways that may be not only beneficial to you, but transformative. Because if you take care of this moment, now, with kindness and awareness, the next moment will be different because of your having taken care of this one, because of your gesture of sanity, trust, and balance.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Real Happiness

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions. While ordinary pleasures are produced by contact with pleasant objects and end when that contact is broken, sukha – lasting well-being – is felt so long as we remain in harmony with our inner nature.

Matthieu Ricard, Happiness

Being happy in our life

Karl Duffy3 Comments

“Rejoice always.” 1 Thess 5:16

It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look. – St. Francis of Assisi

Last Sunday was the third Sunday of Advent, which is known as Gaudete Sunday –  from the Latin word Gaudete, meaning “rejoice”. The season of Advent originally was a fast of forty days in preparation for Christmas, starting the day after the feast of St. Martin (12 November), and was called “St. Martin’s Lent” from as early as the fifth century. This Sunday was a break from the penitential atmosphere in that it focused on joy because the coming celebration was near. There seems to be a number of fundamental themes occurring in all cultures around this time of year, reflecting deep anthropological or archaic desires. One of them is the desire to keep hope and joy alive in the face of shortening days. We can see this theme expressed as hope, patience and looking forward in the Christian season,  due initially to the belief in the immanent return of Jesus. Nowadays the injunction becomes an inner wisdom, directing us to notice what is good and not stay with the mind’s habitual tendency to struggle and focus on what is negative. It also points us towards finding true contentment with how our life is actually at this moment. Practically this means that we cultivate the practice of joy, smiling at the beauty we see each day and being grateful for the good things we receive. Not taking ourselves too seriously, but keeping light and unforced,  is also a useful practice, as the Thich Nhat Hahn quote this morning said,  and as Chesterton reminds us here:

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Seriousness is not a virtue. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.