Tag: heart

Winter

Karl Duffy1 Comment

One kind word can warm three winter months

Japanese Proverb

Sunday Quote: Wonder

Karl Duffy1 Comment

A great person is one who has not lost the heart of a child.

Mencius, 372 – 289 BC, Chinese Philosopher

Being led

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I think of Gloucester, blind, led through the world
To the world’s edge by the hand of a stranger
Who is his faithful son. At the cliff’s verge
He flings away his life, as of no worth,
The true way is lost, his eyes two bleeding wounds–
And finds his life again, and is led on
By the forsaken son who has become
His father, that the good may recognize
Each other, and at last go ripe to death.
We live the given life, and not the planned.

Wendell Barry,A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997 

Instructions

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Show up – Choose to be present; Follow what has heart and meaning

Tell the truth without blame or judgment; Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome

Angeles Arrien, The Four Fold Way

Endings and beginnings

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In the Christian liturgical calendar tomorrow is the last day of the year, with a new year starting on Sunday in Advent. All wisdom and religious traditions give guidance on how to work with the passing of time, how to celebrate fully and be complete in each moment which we have. This text is from the Stoic philosophical viewpoint: 

Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books every day..The person that puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.

Seneca,  Moral Letters, 101, 7b – 8a

 

How do I see the world

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

What way do I behold the world?” Do we see the world through fearful eyes, where everything and every person is perceived as a threat? Do we see the world through greedy eyes, where everything can be possessed at a certain price? Do we see the world through judgmental eyes, where everything and every person is rigidly defined and limited by our prejudices and preconceptions? Do we see the world through resentful eyes, elevating our own entitlements while condemning others for theirs? Do we see the world through indifferent eyes, where our capacity for compassion is trumped by cynicism and despair? Do we see the world through inferior eyes, where everyone is perceived as superior to ourselves? Or can we remove the lens of fear, the lens of greed, the lens of prejudgment, the lens of resentment, the lens of indifference, the lens of inferiority — and then begin to see the world through eyes of love? Can we ever accept St. Augustine’s profound but simple advice: “Love and do what you will.”

John O’Donohoe, Anam Chara