Tag: impermanence

Every moment is rich

Karl Duffy1 Comment

With the restriction on movement and activities these days due to the virus and our caring for each other by creating some distance, we renounce some of the things we would normally like to do.  However, this can make space for noticing what we have in our lives, instead of focusing on what we have not.

The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need,

that what we have already is good.

Every moment of time has enormous energy in it,

and we could connect with that.

Pema Chodron

It is always unknown territory

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It’s been a unsettling week. The old rhythms which felt known and familiar are challenged. But as yesterdays post said, it’s the unknown which pulls back the veil…

“How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” (Plato)…
The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration – how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

An invitation

Karl Duffy4 Comments

 

Yesterday, I went to my local drug store to purchase a thermometer for a loved one who was spiking a fever at home. Walking down the aisles, bare shelves yawned: small tags whispered of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, gloves, thermometers. Asking the pharmacist, he repeated perhaps for the hundredth time that day, “All gone… I’m sorry”. On the street as I drove home, I noticed these signs: a young man stopped to stuff a dollar bill into the can of a street person. A truck flashed its lights at me, yielding for me to turn. Traffic halted for two geese to waddle slowly across four lanes of parkway. This strange moment in time is eliciting unexpected acts of kindness, even while we feel as if we’re in a dream.

We are sitting with the unknown. The unknown is exactly what pulls back the veil. Illness and death are life’s great equalizers. A fever is a fever. A virus seeks a host. We are all potentially at risk. We are all trying to quell the spread. Together.

The Buddha emphasized that if there is something that can absolutely be counted on, it is that nothing can be counted on. Life has always been so. But I forget, most every moment of every day. Lulled by the predictability of my days, I believe that tomorrow will be just like today. Today just like yesterday. The toilet paper will be there.

Fear is an invitation. It is not an invitation to weigh risks or to adjust the externals. It is an invitation to look deeply within and befriend the animal in oneself.

We are sitting with the unknown. The unknown is exactly what pulls back the veil. It offers a glimpse the truth that nothing has ever been certain. This world with all its beauty and all its vibrancy is just so because it is not fixed, because everything is contingent. Life’s natural cousin is uncertainty. The final gift, the one that I keep returning to in these shadowy days, is kindness. A pandemic is a common (pan) experience. We are in this together. We can face it together and we can help one another get through it. Ironically the “social distancing” we are asked to practice is a call to care. It is not a request made for oneself; it is an act of public good.

In a pandemic, self-isolation is called quarantine. In Buddhism, it is called retreat.

From the cave of our home, like the meditators of ancient times, we can consciously kindle the lamp of compassion and connection.

Lama Willa B Miller, Living in this Strange Moment Together

Seeing what we stand on

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Some words from poet David Whyte in these anxious times

GROUND is what lies beneath our feet. It is the place where we already stand; a state of recognition, the place or the circumstances to which we belong whether we wish to or not. It is what holds and supports us, but also what we do not want to be true; it is what challenges us, physically or psychologically, irrespective of our hoped-for needs. It is the living, underlying foundation that tells us what we are, where we are, what season we are in and what, no matter what we wish in the abstract, is about to happen in our body; in the world or in the conversation between the two.

To come to ground is to find a home in circumstances and in the very physical body we inhabit in the midst of those circumstances and above all to face the truth, no matter how difficult that truth may be; to come to ground is to begin the courageous conversation, to step into difficulty and by taking that first step, begin the movement through all difficulties, to find the support and foundation that has been beneath our feet all along: a place to step onto, a place on which to stand and a place from which to step.  

from Consolations:  The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

I don’t think any of us can quite understand the ground on to which we are now settling, due to to the effects of the Coronavirus on our world-wide societies and economies. … This will be a test and a re-ordering, not only of our health and our political and financial systems, but of of our mutual compassion, our willingness to work together and even more perhaps, our willingness to fundamentally change our societies to a more equatable sharing of both rewards and well-being.

from his Facebook page, March 11th 

Working with our anxieties

Karl Duffy1 Comment

We can never solve our lives. Life is not a thing that can be broken and then fixed. Life is a process, and we can never solve a process. We can only participate in this process, either consciously or unconsciously. We aren’t going to find the perfect formula and then coast our way through life. We can’t make pain go away, although we can reduce unnecessary suffering significantly. The more deeply we investigate, the less we can grasp or even know this apparent self that Western psychology takes as its foundation. From the Buddhist perspective, the nature of life — and of our own mind — is basically open. There is no foundation; no ground to stand on. We can consciously participate in this open nature, but we can’t know it.

Bruce Tift, How to Work with Anxiety on the Path of Liberation

Advice in a crisis

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The beginning of being fine is noticing how things really are.
1. Life is uncertain, surprises are likely.
2. If you are alive, that’s good; lower the bar.
3. In a dark place, you still have what really counts.
4. If you are in a predicament, there will be a gate.
5. What you need might be given to you.
6. The true life is in between winning and losing.
7. If you have nothing – give it away.

John Tarrant, It Would Be a Pity to Waste A Good Crisis