Tag: impermanence

Change and Patience

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Chaenomeles 3.jpg

In my hermitage in France there is a bush of japonica.  During the night a cold snap arrived and brought with it frost. The next day I noticed that all the buds on the bush had died. A few weeks later the weather became warm again. I saw new buds on the japonica manifesting another generation of flowers. I asked the japonica flowers: “Are you the same as the flowers that died in the frost or are you different flowers?” The flowers replied to me: “We are not the same and we are not different When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not we go into hiding. It’s as simple as that.”

When conditions are sufficient things manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient things withdraw. They wait until the moment is right for them to manifest again. Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it doesn’t exist.

Thich Nhat Hanh

This weekends weather

Karl Duffy3 Comments

low cloud Jura april 28

Snow, rain and low clouds on the Jura. The weather moves from Spring to Autumn, confusing the plants and the birds. A useful lesson for us in working with our inner changing moods:

High winds do not last all morning

Heavy rain does not last all day

Why is this? Heaven and Earth!

If heaven and earth cannot make things eternal

Why do we think it happens for us?

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Acceptance and peace

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File:Change (4391669205).jpg

Pleasant conditions change into unpleasant ones, and unpleasant conditions eventually become pleasant. We should just keep this awareness of impermanence and be at peace with the way things are, not demanding that they be otherwise.  But most of all we should be at peace with ourselves – that is the big lesson to learn in life. It is really hard to be at peace with oneself. I find that most people have a lot of self-aversion. It is much better to be at peace with our own bodies and minds than anything else, and not demand that they be perfect, that we be perfect, or that everything be good. We can be at peace with the good and the bad.

Ajahn Sumedho

Photo Harald Hoyer

Sunday Quote: Patience…

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seeds-sprouting-in-new-garden

Perhaps the earth can teach us

As when everything seems dead

And later proves to be alive

Pablo Neruda

Going with the flow

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https://mindfulbalance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/river-e1358798833371.jpg

All of us rock back and forth between the tendency to hold on to ideas, experiences and emotions, and the ability to glide through the changes of our life. One reminder that can be helpful for being more fluid is to recognize our own watery-ness. We are also made up of earth (no wonder we get stuck sometimes), air (can’t make a commitment?), fire (sometimes passion helps), and space (ahhh…). But an overwhelming percentage of our physical make-up is water….Relating to waves of movement is what allows us to stay steady and sustain balance. The word “balance” comes from the Latin balare, meaning “to dance.” [And] you know what happens to water if it stays still —  it either turns into ice or becomes brackish and unhealthy. The same thing happens when we try to latch on to a prescribed feeling or experience. If we can only relax a bit we will see that our feelings, both emotional and physical, are flowing all the time.  It’s fun to think of your own body as a tiny part of the whole world of tides, rains, rivers and other people’s ninety-percent-water bodies. Can you let your body be the water bed that your heart and mind rest on?

Cyndi Lee, Go with the Flow

Today is where we live

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P1000460
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Philip Larkin