Tag: impermanence

Using difficulties

Karl Duffy4 Comments

Hard times are not a mistake. You haven’t done something wrong to have hard times….. life is woven with praise and blame and gain, and loss and pleasure, and pain and disrepute for all of us. And those constantly change. 

So the spiritual life is not about avoiding loss and blame and difficulty

but taking those difficulties that come to us and using them to awaken a wise and free and compassionate heart no matter what.

And often it’s in the very difficulties that the greatest freedom comes to us.

Jack Kornfield, Difficult Times and the Crystal of Liberation

Billions of ways

Karl Duffy2 Comments

When we are afraid, the fear-body tends to contract. The word anxiety has its roots in the Latin word ‘angere’ meaning to choke, or become tight, constricted, trapped and limited. It is good to breathe into this body sense and to maintain an awareness of spaciousness and of choice. To lift our eyes up to the hills.

Listen my love, illumination is eternal

Now is always evolving.

As there are billions of stars

There are billions of steps.

As there are billions of souls

There are billions of ways to grow. 

Rumi

We shall dance

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Our life is shorter than flowers.
Then shall we mourn?

No, we shall dance
Plant gardens
Dress in colours
And teach our children
To make the world more beautiful.

Because our life
Is shorter than flowers.

Toltec fragment

Sunday Quote: Meaning

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There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveller.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Flow

Karl Duffy6 Comments

Pain is physical, but suffering is mental.

Outside of the mind there is no suffering.

Pain is essential for the survival of the body, but none compels you to suffer.

Suffering is entirely due to clinging or resisting;

it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1897 – 1981, Indian teacher of nondualism

One foot in front of the other

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Do not feel overwhelmed by the length of this journey.

All you ever need do is focus on one thing, what you are doing.

Stay on the path and put one foot in front of the other – that is all.

There is joy in the struggle.

Philip Toshio Sudo