Tag: impermanence

Not listening to outside voices

Karl Duffy1 Comment

 

Childhood events and interactions can cause wounds which manifest later in the form of an inner  critic, making us feel smaller when faced with stressful situations. It is good to practice resting in our inner innate goodness – the light that comes from within – and not give other persons power over our moods or thoughts.

The object of this learning
is to remove outside authority
from your inner life.
Eliminate the old habit of
listening to others about your
own comfort and convenience

Moshe Feldenkrais

Sunday Quote: The truth deep down

Karl Duffy5 Comments

 

Your up and down emotions are like clouds in the sky;

beyond them, the real, basic human nature is clear and pure.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Practices that stretch us

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

 

There is nothing I dislike

Linji, died 866, founder of the Rinzai school of Zen

In Zen,  koans or phrases such as this are taken on and allowed sink into consciousness to challenge and stretch us and provoke responses other than our habitual ones. Two commentaries by different authors might be useful:

What does that mean, to dislike? Dislike could mean that you are feeling a strain between how things really are and your story about how things are.

John Tarrant, Bring me the Rhinoceros (and other koans to bring you joy).

‘There is nothing I dislike’ rearranges us profoundly, when we offer ourselves to its energy, its scrutiny, its disturbance in us. This practice is not about tidying up the world and making it clean and bright; it’s about recognizing the world as it is and finding right there the radical freedom of being. The alternative is a kind of carefully scaled-down life. One that is still extravagantly rich in detail and variety and shot through with beauty despite all our efforts, since we live on the blue-green planet, but a scaled-down view of what it was we really wanted while we were here, so very briefly.

Susan Murphy, Upside-Down Zen

Like a blank sheet on a coffee table

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The aim of meditation then, is to let go of the conditions of the mind. This doesn’t mean denying, getting rid of, or judging them. It means not believing them or following them. Instead we listen to them as conditions of the mind that arise and cease. We learn to trust in just being the listener, the watcher, with an attitude of awakened, attentive awareness, rather than be somebody trying to meditate to get some kind of result. Then through mindfulness we are able to get beyond the conditioning of the mind to the pure consciousness that isn’t conditioned, but which is like the background, the emptiness, the blank sheet on which words are written. Our perceptions arise and cease on that blank sheet, that emptiness.

Ajahn Sumedho, True but not right, Right but not true

Solid

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Cottage furniture.JPG

One of the fundamental ways of bringing the mind into the present moment is to focus on how we sense our own body. This bodily sense – that is awareness of the sensations and energies that manifest in the body – is something immediate that we can contemplate. It gives us ground and balance. It gives us the sense of being where we are. Although this may seem basic and obvious, much of the time we are not grounded in where we really are. Instead we are ‘out there’ in a world of changing circumstance and reactions to that, without having a central reference.

Ajahn Sucitto, Meditation: A Way of Awakening

photo helenonline

More than our fears

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In Ireland,  Summer is officially over at the end of August, and, as if to acknowledge this, yesterday began foggy and grey. Typically,  however, the rest of the day turned out better than most of the Summer. The fog passed through, the sun came out. Today, we are told to expect heavy rain.  Small upsets or bigger storms…the sky can hold whatever passes through it.

It is essential to understand that an emotion is merely something that arises, remains and then goes away. A storm comes, it stays a while, and then it moves away. At the critical moment remember you are much more than your emotions. This is a simple thing that everyone knows, but you may need to be reminded of it: you are more than your emotions.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Healing Pain and Dressing Wounds