Tag: heart

Good food

Karl Duffy3 Comments

If we pay attention only to the negative things in us, especially the suffering of past hurts, we are wallowing in our sorrows and not getting any positive nourishment. We can practice appropriate attention, watering the wholesome qualities in us by touching the positive things that are always available inside and around us. That is good food for our mind. Naturally, when compassion comes up, arrogance goes down. We can selectively water the good seeds and refrain from watering the negative seeds. This doesn’t mean we ignore our suffering; it just means that we allow the positive seeds that are naturally there to get attention and nourishment.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunday Quote: No mistakes

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose, there are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Love is vulnerable

Karl Duffy3 Comments

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that  casket –  safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

C.S. Lewis, The Fours Loves

Support

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A stormy morning here with high winds predicted for the day. Turbulent news reports also these days, full of dire predictions and evidence that we live in an age of division and suspicion.

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands and climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen, the terrain around here

Is

Far too

Dangerous

For

That.

Hafiz, from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky. 

No permanence

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Still in China. This time an even earlier thinker. We could save ourselves a lot of hassle if we truly lived this:

We cling to our own point of view, as if everything depended on it.

Yet our views have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.

Chuang Tzu, Chinese Philosopher,  4th century 

What she has learned

Karl Duffy3 Comments

I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.    

Maya Angelou