Tag: inspiration

Unique path

Karl Duffy1 Comment

little birdEvery person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique. It is the duty of every person…to know and consider…that there has never been anyone like him in the world, for if there had been someone like him, there would have been no need for him to be in the world. Every single person is a new thing in the world and is called upon to fulfill his particularity in this world. Every person’s foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never-recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, be it even the greatest, has already achieved.

Martin Buber

The slow pace of creation

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Early Morning Driveway.jpg

Slowing how we think and feel and take in the world is directly related to being centered. The wisdom traditions all have some form of meditation and prayer that is aimed at slowing us into this center, where the very pace of creation breathes…..At the pace of creation, all things breathe the same way….So, when we slow and open and center ourselves, we breathe in unison with all of life, and breathing this way we draw strength from all of life.  At the pace of creation, the beginning enters us and we are new.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

photo josh hallett

Sunday Quote: On not living with regret

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When such as I cast out remorse, so great a sweetness flows into the breast

We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blessed.

W.B. Yeats, A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

A story about doing what is right

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File:Black scorpion.jpg

Once, the sage Tulsidas saw a scorpion that was struggling to escape from a river.   The scorpion was about to drown, when Tulsidas reached over and saved it.   The scorpion immediately stung Tulsidas.   In shock, Tulsidas dropped the scorpion back into the waters, where it began struggling again to keep from drowning.   Tulsidas again reached over and picked up the scorpion to save it from drowning.   The scorpion stung Tulsidas once again.   This happened three more times, before Tulsidas was finally able to toss the scorpion to safety in the wooded land around the river.

A man who had been watching this whole incident walked over to Tulsidas, and asked him, “Are you crazy?”

Tulsidas replied, “It is the scorpion’s nature to sting, and it is my nature to be helpful to all beings.   If the scorpion keeps its nature even in the face of death, why should I give up my compassionate nature in the face of his sting?”

Photo: Per-Anders Olsson

Sunday quote: Wasting time in comparisons

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rest

Do not wish to be anything but what you are

and try to be that perfectly.

St Francis de Sales

Sunday quote: Beyond words

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We have reduced our way of speaking about mystery to rational explanations;

but …… mystery enters through the heart.

Pope Francis address to Brazilian bishops, 27 July 2013