Tag: heart

Grace and gratitiude

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Grace and gratitude share the same root word along with gravitas, and there is a strong interconnection among these three states. When people internalize and integrate their experience of grace, their character naturally deepens and they develop gravitas. In Latin, gravitas is similar to charisma, and is defined as a quality that draws us to those who embody dignity, integrity, wisdom, substance, and presence. Being conscious of where grace is present in our lives motivates our expression of gratitude and cultivates gravitas. Gratitude is the external expression. These moments are rare gifts in which we open to an expansive place within our nature, where all is ‘right with the world.

Angeles Arrien

Take three breaths.

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Start by recognizing that you are caught in reactivity – to a perceived slight, unwashed dishes, misplaced eyeglasses, feelings of indigestion, something you regret saying. When you recognize you are stuck, stop everything and take three long, full breathes. These breaths help you disengage from the momentum of your thoughts and activity and make space for your inner experience. Investigate by asking yourself, “What am I feeling?” and bring your attention to your body – primarily your throat, chest and belly.  Notice what sensations (tightness, heat, pressure) and emotions (angry, afraid, guilty) are predominant. Let your intention be to befriend what you notice. Try to stay in touch with your breath as you contact your felt sense of what is happening.. Sometimes it’s easy to locate your felt sense, but at other times it might be vague and hard to identify quickly. What is important is pausing and deepening your attention. See if it is possible to regard yourself with kindness. 

Tara Brach, True Refuge

How we learn

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I know the world is bruised and bleeding and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.

Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom.

Toni Morrison

Through difficulties..

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I know from my personal experience that out of pathos (great suffering) we come to know pothos (our sense of emerging self).

Through the portal of the intolerable, we deepen into soul.

Stephen Aizenstat, Dream Tending: Awakening to the Healing Power of Dreams

The first step

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Without meditation, where do we even begin to find a place to stand and speak the whole truth? The four noble truths teach that there is suffering, that it’s caused by human ignorance and selfishness, that it stops when these attitudes stop, and that we have to live in accordance with that. Maybe the truths of suffering and its origin don’t lead to the ceasing of suffering on the sociocultural level right now. But through meditation, through directly accessing the heart, one can at least see and speak the truth of how suffering feels in this moment, where you experience it in your heart and body. A way of action can evolve from that, but the first step is to speak truth, feel truth, live truth.

Ajahn Sucitto, Heart light in Dark Times

Sunday Quote: Magical

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

This world, after all our science – is still a miracle;

wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more.

Thomas Carlyle, 1795 – 1881, British historian,  essayist, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher.