Tag: impermanence

…No path

Karl Duffy3 Comments

dune

Go forth on your path,
As it exists only through your walking

Saint Augustine, Sermon 169.

Sunday Quote: No map….

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:FEMA - 40463 - North Dakota Flooding Map of Fargo with pumping stat.jpg

You must give up the life you planned

in order to have the life that is waiting for you

Joseph Campbell

Arising and returning

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Specimen of four wild hyacinth flowers blossoming, ca.1920 (CHS-5438).jpg

The “10,000 is things”expression for all that happens in a life, or in the world of our experience. They arise and pass away, continually rearranging themselves,  and we have to learn how to work with this reality:

The ten thousand things arise together;

In their arising is their return.

Now they flower, and flowering sink homeward, returning to the root.

The return to the root is peace.

Peace: to accept what must be

and to know what endures.

In that knowledge is wisdom

Lao Tzu

The secret for a full life

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:BBGMonarchButterflyWings.jpg

The butterfly counts not months but moments,

and has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

Representations and reality

Karl Duffy1 Comment

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Orienteering_map.jpg

Consciousness works by making maps, and there is always a gap between our maps and the territory of our lives. A surprise is a landscape feature that was not on my map.  Surprises are common and an indication you are alive. Our representations are fragile and based on poor data. The mind assigns value to events, saying, “This is good” and “This is bad,” but the values we give things are usually just arm-waving and scrambling about. The world is truly unpredictable in its consequences and our reactions to events are also unpredictable, even if we have a deep meditation practice.

We can make an ally of surprise. Meditation methods are not intended to make the world predictable, but they provide a space in which we can have our reactions without fighting with ourselves. And in the end, meditation resets the maps and opinions to zero.  When we meditate, there is nothing else in the world, and whatever we have is enough.

John Tarrant, 7 Ways to Make the Most of Life’s Surprises.

Always changing

Karl Duffy3 Comments

road

It is the stubbornness with which we refuse to let what’s growing underneath come through that pains us. It is the fear that nothing is growing underneath that feeds our despair. It is the moment that we cease growing in any direction that is truly deadly.…Imagine if trees never shed their leaves, or if waves never turned over, or if clouds dumped their rain and disappeared. I say this to remind myself as much as you: Little deaths prevent big deaths. What matters most is waiting its turn, underneath all that is expending itself to prepare the way.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening