Tag: heart

Sunday Quote: Hold things lightly

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Aeschylus says, “There is no effort in what is divine.” There is an easiness in salvation which is more difficult to us than all our efforts.

In one of Grimm’s stories there is a competition between a giant and a little tailor to see which is the stronger. The giant throws a stone so high that it takes a very long time before it comes down again. The little tailor lets a bird fly and it does not come down at all. Anything without wings always comes down again in the end.

Simone Weil, Waiting on God

 

Letting go of resistance

Karl Duffy1 Comment

In the garden of Gethsemane, the last words Jesus spoke were, “Stay awake.” In fact, he says it twice. The Buddha offered the same wisdom; “Buddha” actually means “I am awake.” 

Staying awake comes not from willpower but from a wholehearted surrender to this moment – as it is.  It’s largely a matter of letting go of resistance to what the moment offers or of clinging to a past moment. It is an acceptance of the full reality of what is right here and now. It will be the task of your whole lifetime.

 Richard Rohr, Just This

When feeling overwhelmed

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Meditation doesn’t change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart’s capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.

Sylvia Boorstein, Don’t Just do something, Sit There

He said not “Thou shalt not be troubled, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be distressed,” but he said, “Thou shalt not be overcome.”

Julian of Norwich

All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,
Like dew or a flash of lightning; This is how you should observe and reflect.

The Diamond Sutra

 

Learned helplessness

Karl Duffy1 Comment

It is good to remember that …there is a part of you that has always said yes. There is a part of you that is Love itself, and that is what we must fall into. It is already there. Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner contentment, you will realize you are drawing upon a Life that is much larger than your own and from a deeper abundance. Once you learn this, why would you ever again settle for scarcity in your life? “I’m not enough! This is not enough! I do not have enough!” I am afraid this is the way culture trains you to think. It is a kind of learned helplessness. The Gospel message is just the opposite — inherent power.

Richard Rohr

The rarest wildflowers

Karl Duffy1 Comment

I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends 
nothing, but only knows 
where the rarest wildflowers 
are blooming, and who goes, 
and finds that he is smiling 
not by his own will.

Wendell Berry,  from Given

Belonging and not belonging

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Interestingly, we belong to life as much through our sense that it is all impossible, as we do through the sense that we will accomplish everything we have set out to do. This sense of belonging and not belonging is lived out by most people through three principal dynamics: first, through relationship to other people and other living things; second, through work; and third, through an understanding of what it means to be themselves, discrete individuals alive and seemingly separate from everyone and everything else.

David Whyte, The Three Marriages