Tag: heart

Deep down, already there

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Some traditions, East and West, hold that everyone, deep down, has an original perfect quality, a clear or luminous, natural, true state and potential. This gets covered over by the constructions and labels which we adopt as we conform to our environment, or as we change ourselves in response to people around us or the circumstances of our lives.

In some Buddhist traditions, we simply should get in touch with our already present, buddha-nature, underneath all our daily agitations. 

All beings are full with buddha-nature.

It is only due to their agitations that they do not know or perceive it.

Thus, diligently work with those experiences which lead you to eradicate getting agitated.


Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Mahayana Buddhist sutra, c 2nd Century CE

The mind’s potential

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

There are many wrong tracks in society, but they are all basically the same: They all take us outside of ourselves to satisfy our inner needs.
Whether they take us toward material goods or towards social relationships and emotional co-dependence, they all ignore the mind’s own potential to provide us with happiness and peace

Dzigar Kongtrul, It’s Up to You

Expect the circus

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The glorious, colorful life comes to those who expect it, dream it. Remember how grand life was when the circus or the fair was imminent? Colors changed. More dramatic than the change of seasons was the change of attitudes.

So expect the circus, always.

Be the circus.

Tennessee Williams

Sunday Quote: Consider this

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Think of the wren

and how little flesh is needed to make a song

Galway Kinnell, Why Regret?

Gladden the heart

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The beginning of the season of Ramadam

What actions are most excellent?

To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured.

That person is the most beloved, who does most good to God’s creatures

From the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad in the Sahih al-Bukhari 

Courage

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Everyone who moves on

walks like Jesus,

on the sea

Antonio Machado,  1875 – 1939, Spanish poet.