Tag: impermanence

Tolerance for uncertainty

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:The steep slope down from Meall a Coire Leith - geograph.org.uk - 1002952.jpg
There is a deep-seated tendency, it’s almost a compulsion, to distract ourselves, even when we’re not consciously feeling uncomfortable. There’s a background hum of edginess, boredom, restlessness. As I’ve said, during my time in retreat where there were almost no distractions, even there I experienced this deep uneasiness.…..We feel this uneasiness because we’re always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We’re always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn’t exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing…Nothing is pin-down-able the way we’d like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty
Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap
photo david brown

Seeing the different people

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting (080) (7395918716).jpg
There are many different ideas of “you” in your mind, each with its own agenda. Each of these “you’s” is a member of the committee of the mind. This is why the mind is less like a single mind and more like an unruly throng of people: lots of different voices, with lots of different opinions about what you should do. Some members of the committee are open and honest about the assumptions underlying their central desires. Others are more obscure and devious. This is because each committee member is like a politician, with its own supporters and strategies for satisfying their desires. One of the purposes of meditation is to bring these dealings out into the open, so that you can bring more order to the committee — so that your desires for happiness work less at cross purposes, and more in harmony as you realize that they don’t always have to be in conflict.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Sunday Quote: Every day as something new

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earlz morning menton

Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior

that every single day he made a fresh beginning.

Abba Poemen (c. 340–450) was an Egyptian monk and one of the early Desert Fathers

Hold everything lightly

Karl Duffy1 Comment
File:High above the Cloud the Sun Stays the Same.jpg
From the beginning
the flying birds have left
no footprints on the blue sky
Musō Soseki, Zen Buddhist Monk, calligraphy artist, poem writer, and garden designer,  1275 – 1351
photo wing chi poon

….Not taking things personally

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File:Small boat on Baltic see.jpg

In fully allowing conditions to be what they are, we stabilize our hearts and find peace. It’s like putting a boat into water. We make an ark of truth: ‘the conditions are like this,’ and in that truth, we  don’t adopt the conditions as our own. This is important: you can’t drain the sea, but you don’t have to drown.

Ajahn Sucitto, Parami

photo pmalkowski

 …

The basic choice….

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When I was about six years old I received an essential …. teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved, and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, “Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.” Right there, I received this pith instruction: We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have the choice.

Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare you

photo vivian eng