Tag: impermanence

Fresh eyes

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Following Mom – Division- West – Seed- 8 (25584611410).jpg

Much of life is ruined for us by a blanket or shroud of familiarity that descends between us and everything that matters. It dulls our senses and stops us appreciating everything, from the beauty of a sunset to our work and our friends. Children don’t suffer from habit, which is why they get excited by some very key but simple things — like puddles, jumping on the bed, sand, and fresh bread. But we adults get ineluctably spoiled, which is why we seek ever more powerful stimulants, like fame and love.

The trick …. is to recover the powers of appreciation of a child in adulthood, to strip the veil of habit and therefore to start to look upon daily life with a new and more grateful sensitivity.

Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life

Falling is part of life

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Cross on Observation Hill, McMurdo Station.jpg

Everyone, from time to time, experiences  a challenge which makes life seem less safe, when things seem to tighten around them – a new job, relationship difficulties, facing an illness or being let down.  Under these pressures we may stumble and even fall:

If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe,

I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me.

But this was shown:

that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.


Julian of Norwich 

photo of memorial for Captain Scott South Pole, by Barneygumble

Sunday Quote: Quiet

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File:Lazy Autumn Afternoon (15635450996).jpg

A quote for the beginning of the most important week in the Christian calendar:

The quieter you become

The more you can hear

Ram Dass

photo USFWS Mountain Prairie

Being kind to ourselves – even the difficult bits

Karl Duffy6 Comments

File:Shadow Person.jpg

Face the shadow side of yourself, but do not identify with it. It represents only part of who you are.  So there is a difference between relating to the denied parts of yourself (bringing light to them), and totally “acting them out” (which is to leave them in their unconscious and dark state). This is why it is so foundational to know yourself, and to learn to be honest about your real motivations.

The hero in us wants to attack, fix, or deny the existence of our dark side. We can also be tempted to share dramatically everything about it as a way to control it (sometimes called ventilating or dumping). The saint merely weeps over the shadow and forgives it — and by God’s grace forgives himself for being a mere human. He opens his arms to that which has been in exile and welcomes it home for the friend that it often is.

Richard Rohr,  On the Threshold of Transformation: Daily Meditations for Men

What Springtime teaches us

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Heaven and Earth give themselves.

Air, water, plants, animals, and humans give themselves to each other.

It is in this giving-themselves-to-each-other that we actually live.

Whether you appreciate it or not, it is true.

Kodo Sawaki, 1880 – 1965, Japanese Sōtō Zen teacher

The light is always there

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Porthole Window (4869420700).jpg

A beautiful idea, similar to the Eastern understanding of natural goodness, or original mind:

Our hands full or not:
The same abundance.
Our eyes open or shut:
The same light.

Yves Jean Bonnefoy, French poet and art historian, 1923 – 2016

with, as before, thanks to david kanigan, Live and Learn blog

photo carrotmadman6